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Who really said it

Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools

Not Napoleon’s words — a later paraphrase Napoleon Bonaparte 1769–1821 · Emperor of the French & military commander
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

The sentiment is authentically Napoleon’s: in a letter of 9 July 1813 to General Le Marois, defending Magdeburg, he wrote — in the standard telling — “Ce n’est pas possible, m’écrivez-vous : cela n’est pas français” (“It is not possible, you write to me: that is not French”), later compressed to “impossible n’est pas français.” But this ornate English sentence about a “dictionary of fools” matches none of his documented statements and traces to no primary source — it is a much later paraphrase.

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools” Attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, but a later paraphrase. His documented line was "impossible n'est pas français" (letter to General Le Marois, 1813). Source: Quotle.info

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We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the world of Napoleon Bonaparte — Emperor of the French & military commander. Theme: "Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

What Napoleon actually said

Documented saying
Impossible n’est pas français
Earliest context
Letter to General Le Marois, Magdeburg, 9 July 1813
Popularized by
Honoré de Balzac, Maximes et pensées de Napoléon (1838)
This English wording
Later paraphrase — no primary source

Ce n’est pas possible, m’écrivez-vous : cela n’est pas français.

The line as traditionally reported from Napoleon’s 1813 letter to General Le Marois — “It is not possible, you write to me: that is not French.” Note that it names no “dictionary” and no “fools.”

Impossible n’est pas français — origin (French Wikipedia)

How we verified this

  • The saying Napoleon is actually documented using is “impossible n’est pas français”, traced to a July 1813 letter to General Le Marois and popularized by Balzac in 1838, per French Wikipedia.
  • A survey of the origins notes two competing accounts (Somosierra 1808 and the 1813 Le Marois letter) and stresses “there are no confirmed sources” — and none mention a “dictionary of fools”, per The Connexion.
  • The embellished “dictionnaire des imbéciles / dictionary of fools” form circulates widely as a Napoleon quote on aggregators such as citation-celebre.com, but with no documented source attached.

Napoleon’s documented French line (“impossible n’est pas français,” from an 1813 letter) is long in the public domain. But the specific English wording — “a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools” — cannot be tied to any identifiable first publication or translator, so no copyright status can honestly be asserted for it.

Fact-check

How the wording drifted

This is a case where the thought is real but the sentence is invented. Napoleon did dismiss the word “impossible” — but not in these words.

Napoleon Bonaparte Later paraphrase

No letter, memoir, or speech records Napoleon saying “a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.” Origin surveys list only the “impossible n’est pas français” accounts and note there are “no confirmed sources,” per The Connexion.

Napoleon Bonaparte Genuine — different words

Napoleon really did reject “impossible”: in an 1813 letter to General Le Marois he wrote that the word “n’est pas français,” a line Balzac later popularized in 1838, per French Wikipedia.

Napoleon’s real, documented line was “impossible n’est pas français” — “impossible is not French” — from his 1813 letter to General Le Marois; the “dictionary of fools” sentence is a later English embellishment with no source, as the origin record shows.

Context

Why the line stuck to Napoleon

Napoleon is one of the internet’s biggest magnets for tidy, motivational one-liners: a decisive conqueror is the perfect mouthpiece for “nothing is impossible.” His genuine remark — a sharp play on the word français in a wartime dispatch — is punchier in French than in English, so translators and anthologists reshaped it. Over time the untranslatable pun (“not French”) was swapped for a portable moral (“the dictionary of fools”).

The result reads like Napoleon and flatters the same defiant spirit, which is exactly why it spread — and why it is worth flagging that the words themselves are not his.

The idea is Napoleon’s. The sentence is someone else’s.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Doubt Courage

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Impossible n'est pas françaisfr.wikipedia.org

Origin of Napoleon's real saying: the 1813 Le Marois letter and its popularization by Balzac.
Origins of 'impossible n'est pas français'connexionfrance.com

English-language survey of the competing origin stories, noting there are no confirmed sources.
« Cela n'est pas français » — Napoléonhistoire-en-citations.fr

French quotation-history page giving the Le Marois letter wording and context.
impossible n'est pas françaisfr.wiktionary.org

Etymology and usage of the genuine French phrase attributed to Napoleon.
Citation (dictionnaire des imbéciles)citation-celebre.com

Example of the 'dictionary of fools/imbeciles' variant circulating as a Napoleon quote with no source.
Ten Famous Things Napoleon Never Saidwarhistoryonline.com

Context on how routinely feel-good one-liners are misattributed to Napoleon.

The author

About Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte

1769–1821 · Emperor of the French & military commander

Napoleon Bonaparte rose from Corsican artillery officer to Emperor of the French, reshaping Europe through the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars before his defeat at Waterloo in 1815 and exile to Saint Helena. His terse, combative maxims — often recorded second-hand by aides and memoirists — made him one of history’s most quoted figures, and one of the most freely misquoted.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest documented saying

Napoleon Bonaparte to General Jean Le Marois, letter of 9 July 1813 (Magdeburg): “Ce n’est pas possible… cela n’est pas français”; popularized in Honoré de Balzac, Maximes et pensées de Napoléon (Paris, 1838). The English “dictionary of fools” wording has no documented source.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/impossible-is-a-word-to-be-found-only-in-the-dictionary-of

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