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  ...the Alps; he builds the road. All distinguished engineers, savants, statists, report to him; so likewise do all good heads in every kind; he adopts the best measures, sets his stamp on them, and not these alone, but on every happy and memorable expression. Every sentence spoken by Napoleon, and every line of his writing, deserves reading, as it is the sense of France.
Bonaparte was the idol of common men, because he had in transcendent degree the qualities and powers of common men. There is a certain satisfaction in coming down to the lowest ground of politics, for we get rid of cant and hypocrisy.   Bonaparte wrought, in common with that great class he represented, for power and wealth,--but Bonaparte, specially, without any scruple as to the means. All the sentiments which embarrass men's pursuit of these objects, he set aside. The sentiments were for women and children. Fontanes, in 1804, expressed Napoleon's own sense, when, in behalf of the Senate, he addressed him,--"Sire, the desire of perfection is the worst disease that ever afflicted the human mind." The advocates of...   Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Excerpt from Representative Men · This quote is about politics · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation.

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