History is a myth that men agree to believe.
Napoleon BonaparteRead
Do you wish to find out the really sublime? Repeat the Lord's Prayer.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that true depth and greatness can be found in simple, profound practices such as prayer.
Napoleon Bonaparte's quote highlights the importance of spiritual practices, specifically the Lord's Prayer, in reaching a higher understanding of the sublime. It suggests that engaging in such a profound act can lead to a deeper appreciation of life's mysteries and a connection to something greater than oneself.
In practice
To inspire reflection at a spiritual retreat.
History is a myth that men agree to believe.
One must indeed be ignorant of the methods of genius to suppose that it allows itself to be cramped by forms. Forms are for mediocrity, and it is fortunate that mediocrity can act only according to routine. Ability takes its flight unhindered.
One can lead a nation only by helping it see a bright outlook. A leader is a dealer in hope.
We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.
Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.
It is my wish that my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people, whom I have loved so well.
Just think how many thoughts a blanket smothers while one lies alone in bed, and how many unhappy dreams it keeps warm.
An ugliness unfurled in the moonlight and soft shadow and suffused the whole world. If I were an amoeba, he thought, with an infinitesimal body, I could defeat ugliness. A man isnβt tiny or giant enough to defeat anything.
I was forced to stretch my thinking, to realize that sincere and honest people could believe in very divergent religious doctrines.
I am a prisoner of a gaudy and unlivable present, where all forms of human society have reached an extreme of their cycle and there is no imagining what new forms they may assume.
There is no such thing as a good tax.
The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most disinterested assertion of authority.
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