Note 791 — Chapter XII · THE STATE (C) PHILOSOPHY OF POLITICS

“Empires perish, but a good verse stands,” said W. von Humboldt on the field of Waterloo. But, all the same, the personality of Napoleon preformed the history of the next century. Good verses!—he should have questioned a peasant by the way-side. They “stand”—for literary teaching. Plato is eternal—for philologists. But Napoleon inwardly rules us, all of us, our states and our armies, our public opinion, the whole of our political outlook, and the more effectually the less we are conscious of it.