/lit/ - Literature

What makes him the greatest? He won some fucking battles.

>>14023391
Jesus quoted the Old Testament often, so I'm assuming that.

>>14023391
Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

Voltaire
Locke
Montesquieu
Rousseau
Benjamin Franklin

not War and Peace I'll tell yah hwhat

>>14023391
Caesar, Cicero, Voltaire, Diderot and the Abbe Raynal, Erasmus, Eutropius, Livy, Phaedrus, Sallust, Vigil, Cornelius Nepos, Polybius, Plutarch, Arrian, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Machiavelli

>>14023391
The bible

>>14023391
He liked Goethe a lot

Napoleon would be confused by a smartphone. Literally everyone who lived in pre-information age time was a functioning retard in comparison to us. Think of your boomer parents, but 100 times worse.

>>14023553
>If you don't know how to use this magical box that gives me dopamine and brainwashes me is a retard
>saying this about a man that will be remembered thousands of years from now for being a hair's thread away from conquering Europe
Honestly kys

>>14023571
even a starving fish wouldn't take bait that obvious

>>14023571
>this man is great because he told a bunch of uneducated peasants to go kill other uneducated peasants, until tons of uneducated peasants were killed for the sake of his vanity
What a guy, certainly better than any artist/scientist/explorer/inventor

>>14023587
He was an artist and a scientist, his canvas was the battlefield and he forever changed warfare. As well his troops discovered the Rosetta Stone during his excursion with Egypt which brought immense knowledge since we could now decrypt hieroglyphs.

>>14023607
So was Julius Caesar, and his poetry was the laughingstock of Rome. Thats not what either of this men are remembered for. Ultimately, generals are nothing but glorified mass murderers that edgy kids on the internet worship because their placid lives in modern age isolated them from any realities of war, so they could spew out retarded banalities like the "canvas of the battlefield"

>>14023628
Except the very civilization you're living in now is to this day affected by the decisions of Julius Caesar. Even our very calendar system was designed by him.

>>14023662
The very civilization you're living in now was far more affected by Grug Grogson from 100000BC. That's how history works, you know, preceding events having ripple effects on the following events. What a retarded way to judge the worth of a man.

>>14023391
my diary desu

>>14023681
History doesn't remember grug it remembers CAESAR.

>>14023409
are you 13?

>>14023391
Unironically the entire western canon.

He self isolated from a young age and auto-didactically read and took notes on all books he could.

He even memorized portions of Caesar's gallic Wars.

>>14023409
Based retard

>>14023745
I thought Napoleon didn't study past wars?

>>14023745
Wtf he is literally me

Whatever he felt like reading. /thread

>>14023523
>Napoleon used to walk around with a copy of the Sorrows of Young Werther
Now this is autism. Can't believe some r9k faggot wore the purple and conquered half of Europe.

>>14023754
He attended a military academy...

>>14023745
He essentially viewed himself as an actor in the western canon. He would draw analogies of his exploits as they were happening to historical events, like comparing the Russians to the Scythians in Alexander the Great's conquest.

He holistically embodied the western canon. Understanding one's historical context and what role they want to play probably feels like 3000mg of adderall every day.

Alexander read the Iliad

>>14023806
who?

>>14023433
>butterfly larping as a knowledgeable man

>>14023763
Yeah... Napoleon was def not /r9k/ he was chad as fuck and incredibly charismatic. Durrrr he was 5’6!!
However I could agree that sorrows of Young Werther is pleb tier goethe if that’s would you’re saying. Still a better favorite book than yours, faggot

>>14023391
Napoleon used to get his mistress to not bathe for weeks because he liked the smell

>>14023924
>However I could agree that sorrows of Young Werther is pleb tier goethe if that’s would you’re saying. Still a better favorite book than yours, faggot
Come at me, bro.

>>14023409
based 13 year old retard.

He fell for the Ossian trend, didn't he?

Has anyone alive actually read Ossian?

I've never managed to find a cheap edition of the book. Goethe loved it.

>>14023926
Profoundly patrician preferences.

>>14023926
>inundated with physiologically rooted culture
>can't conceive of known body odors or pheromones as foreign/other
>immersed in the experience of humanity to it's full extent
>romanicism and attachment as a way of life, not an ideal
When did love die, /lit/?

He isn't the 'greatest' man. He was exiled to Saint Helena because he failed. He won a few battles and influenced the legal code of Europe. That wouldn't put him in the Top 50 greatest men in terms of influence.

The 'greatest' man would embody virtue at it's highest. Why would he fight wars?

>>14023681
>implying value is placed on limitless effectual rather than greater and lesser intentional effectual within the finite and so processional understanding of man
You're a retard 13 year old.

>>14023681
"For there is no sadder proof of a mans own littleness than his disbelief in great men"

- Thomas Carlyle

>>14023409
based 13 year old retarded question poster

>>14023553
huh, you don't say..

>>14023975
>He was exiled to Saint Helena because he failed.
Alexander died in Babylon, infinitely far from having realized his dream of a Hellenic world. Caesar died before any effective or thorough use of the roman state. Every great man failed, but their failures made average victories look pathetic in comparison.

>>14023975
"For there is no sadder proof of a mans own littleness than his disbelief in great men"

Even apart from his heroic purpose of historic progression and his extreme moral sensibility he was a military genius, a truly great man; that does not equate to the truly moral man necessarily. For as Jung says “No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.” The greatest of man have the greatest of shadows, sometimes it is their overcoming of this which makes them great, and other times it is their own ability and will. Whatever Napoleon is war is no immoral action except be to the cowardice of peasants. Still, one cannot expect a Lion of geese.

>>14023409
Based 13 year old retard question poster anon

>>14023409
>>14023409

This is sad because other people on this thread feel the same way, he changed the whole western nation ,western law, ways of conducting warfare, battered open the doors of the monarchy and helped further the enlightenment era.

Pooor poor thread.

>>14023628
Generals and conquerors were worshiped in all ages by men of all kinds - just consider how Alexander and Caesar were both idolized in the very battailous medieval period.
>>14023391
Here's the first proper answer: one of his favourite works was the "Poems of Ossian" - he was said to be "in ecstasy" after reading them, and was known to always keep a copy in his back pocket.
The Ossianic works were a cycle of Gaelic epic poems, translated (and it is now believed, mostly composed) by James MacPherson. They were very popular in their age - you may remember it being read in "The Sorrows of Young Werther". Here's a quotation:
>A TALE of the times of old!
>Why, thou wanderer unseen! Thou bender of the thistle of Lora; why, thou breeze of the valley, hast thou left mine ear? I hear no distant roar of streams! No sound of the harp, from the rock! Come, thou huntress of Lutha, Malvina, call back his soul to the bard. I look forward to Lochlin of lakes, to the dark, billowy bay of U-thorno, where Fingal descends from ocean, from the roar of winds. Few are the heroes of Morven, in a land unknown!
>>14023968
They're on James MacPherson's Wikisource page

>>14023411
this

>>14023924
>However I could agree that sorrows of Young Werther is pleb tier goethe

>>14023975
hahahahahah

Napoleon is a symbol. The man himself was not great at all. He was a smart tactician and an egomaniac. He relied on hundreds of other factors completely out of his control. He was lucky. But he is nothing more than a symbol.

>>14023992
Again, none of those people are great men.
>>14023996
I admire great men, however, those people are not great men. 'Military genius' is not a great man. It's actually the opposite. Christ / Buddha / Shankara = Great men....Some military 'genius'...not so much

>>14023409
>What makes him the greatest?
there is an entire era of history named after him

>genius level iq
>enrolled in a military academy before his teens
>nationalist at 10 years old
>only needed 4 hours of sleep every night
>child prodigy
>redefined warfare
>entirety of europe declared war not on france, but on napoleon
>so dangerous in war that some of the best and most accomplished military commanders of all time were ordered to avoid him in battle at all costs
>called "the god of war" by clausewitz
>admired by everybody, allies, enemies and the poor
>hated by the rich
>his napoleonic code of law is still in use today
>warhammer 40k emperor of mankind is based on napoleon

>>14024249
>conquered Moscow

barely

>>14024223
None of those people you named existed though

>>14024249
>there is an entire era of history named after him

It's just a label.

>>14024249
Cringe

>>14023391
The sorrows of young werther

Napoleon's favorite author was Polybius.

>>14024223
Why shouldn't we consider those military men great? Their accomplishments were uncommon, and their acts influential. I do agree that people like Jesus or Mohammed were even greater, but that's neither here nor there

>>14024223
>I admire great men, however, those people are not great men. 'Military genius' is not a great man. It's actually the opposite. Christ / Buddha / Shankara = Great men....Some military 'genius'...not so much
So you believe great equates to good, but if that were so the good would be innately great rather than a scale of equal development between the good and the evil if not that the evil has opportunity innately so over the good - being of course but a star in which the darkness revolves around and knows itself by, destined to burn out at some point and be all consumed by the darkness there lies, a destruction of good results in the deathless entry into entropy which is the natural state of existence. And that is to say without its live ingredients which is life.

>>14024296
i thought he only wanted to read him and formed a high opinion about him indirectly. when the volumes finally arrived at st helena, he was already dying.

not mentioned yet: turrenne and frederick the great's memoirs/diaries desu

and when he came to germany he showed more familiarity with the works of wieland than goethe.

>>14023391

>>14023571
It is just some kid shitposting, they are not in school today.

>>14024249
>accolades consist mostly of getting a lot of people killed
>great

>>14023975
War is the father of all things.

>>14023975
Greatest, not goodest.

>>14023799
+1
Historical purpose is the greatest stimulant

>>14023391
Goethe and von Humboldt were some of his favorites

>>14023975
His greatest contribution was the Napoleonic code. It reorganized and modernized statecraft.

>>14024249
>>admired by everybody, allies, enemies and the poor
You haven't read much of his writing have you

>>14023409
based 13 year old retarded question poster

>>14023391
He was a big Thomas Pynchon fan, though he liked Mason & Dixon more than Gravity's Rainbow.

>gets defeated by the Anglos
>introduces virgin civil law instead of chad Anglo common law

Why do people worship this retard again?

>>14023391
al-Qu'ran

>>14024249
>>hated by the rich
The jews thought he was their messiah, though.

>>14025659
cringe

>>14023391
>Greatest man in history
>not Alexander Hamilton
""I consider Napoleon, Fox, and Hamilton the three greatest men of our epoch, and if I were forced to decide between the three, I would give without hesitation the first place to Hamilton" - Talleyrand

>>14023391
War & Peace.

>>14024262
No, totally.

>>14027140
They literally evacuated the city which destroyed his entire Russia campaign, dingus.

>>14026914
>murica

Pls go

>>14026914
>Not Burr

>>14023410
Faggot

>>14023628
Seethe more, soiboy.

>>14024282
Bugman

>>14023926
>During the time of Napoleon Bonaparte’s and the French conquest of Egypt, Muslim women were taking off their Hijabs in a sexual manner to seduce the French. Then the streets of Egypt were filled with Muslim women with their French boyfriends.
>Muslim men were already mad that Napoleon was taxing them to death to fund his own empire. But seeing their Daughters and wives proudly parading around with the French soldiers set them off. Then the Muslim men started a revolt, but it ended in failure because Napoleon brutally suppressed it by bombing Mosques and executed every Muslim who was involved in the revolt
He was very based