Straight from today’s Quotle — here’s who really said it, and the story behind it. Play again

Who really said it

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake

Attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte 1769–1821 · Emperor of the French
The thought is documented. The wording is not. Free to reuse

Napoleon is credibly credited with the idea: the oldest documented version, in Baron Antoine-Henri Jomini’s Vie politique et militaire de Napoléon (Paris: Anselin, 1827), has him say of the enemy at Austerlitz, “Quand l’ennemi fait un faux mouvement, il faut se garder de l’interrompre.” But the famous eight-word English form matches no located primary source — Quote Investigator found no exact 1800s match, and Wikiquote files the line under “Attributed.”

Last verified 27 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Unconfirmed quote & credit

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake” Attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821). The thought is documented but the popular wording is a modern paraphrase. The earliest source, Antoine-Henri Jomini's "Vie politique et militaire de Napoléon" (Paris: Anselin, 1827), p. 180, reads "Quand l'ennemi fait un faux mouvement, il faut se garder de l'interrompre" — rendered in English by Archibald Alison in 1836 as "when the enemy is making a false movement we must take good care not to interrupt him." Via Quotle.info

Can you use it?

Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Napoleon Bonaparte — Emperor of the French and military commander. Theme: "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake". 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.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake". 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

The oldest documented version

Earliest documented source
Vie politique et militaire de Napoléon, racontée par lui-même au tribunal de César, d’Alexandre et de Frédéric
Author · publisher
Baron Antoine-Henri Jomini · Paris: Anselin, 1827 · p. 180
Earliest English record
Archibald Alison, History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution… (W. Blackwood and Sons, 1836), p. 476, ch. XL “Campaign of Austerlitz”
Popular wording
Matches no located primary source; the earliest “making a mistake” version in Quote Investigator’s timeline is Austin Bierbower’s, 1888

The marshals who surrounded Napoleon saw the advantage, and eagerly besought him to give the signal for action; but he restrained their ardour, and turning to Soult, said, “How long would it take you from hence to reach the heights of Pratzen?” — “Less than twenty minutes,” replied the Marshal; “for my troops are in the bottom of the valley, covered with mist and the smoke of their bivouacs; the enemy cannot see them.” — “In that case,” said Napoleon, “let us wait twenty minutes; when the enemy is making a false movement we must take good care not to interrupt him.” Alison, 1836 · abridged

This is Archibald Alison’s 1836 English rendering — the earliest record of the saying in English, and the closest thing to a source the quote has. Note what it does not say: not “never interrupt your enemy,” and not “mistake.” The French behind it, in Jomini’s 1827 book, reads “Quand l’ennemi fait un faux mouvement, il faut se garder de l’interrompre.”

Scanned 1827 edition
Jomini, Vie politique et militaire de Napoléon (Anselin, 1827) at the Internet Archive
Snopes: Did Napoleon say, ‘Never interrupt your enemy while he’s making a mistake’?

Paper trail

  • 1827 — the French original. The oldest documented form is not English. Baron Antoine-Henri Jomini’s Vie politique et militaire de Napoléon (Paris: Anselin, 1827) puts the words in Napoleon’s mouth as “Quand l’ennemi fait un faux mouvement, il faut se garder de l’interrompre.” Snopes locates it at page 180 ↗.
  • 1836 — the first English record. Scottish historian Archibald Alison sets the exchange before Austerlitz in 1805 and has Napoleon say “when the enemy is making a false movement we must take good care not to interrupt him.” Quote Investigator places it at page 476 ↗. Snopes notes that Alison credited the passage to Jomini.
  • 1852–1965 — the wording drifts. The maxim loosens with each retelling: “when your enemy is executing a false movement, never interrupt him” (1852); an unattributed military maxim about a “false move” (1879); Austin Bierbower’s “Never interfere with your enemy when he is making a mistake” (1888); and finally Theodore H. White’s “Never interfere with the enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself” in The Making of the President 1964. See the full chain ↗.
  • The chain of custody is thin. Jomini’s book was published in 1827, six years after Napoleon’s death in 1821, and its full title declares it “recounted by himself before the tribunal of Caesar, Alexander and Frederick” — a first-person literary device, not a transcript. The Fondation Napoléon also records that Jomini was not present at Austerlitz ↗.
Public domain

Both works that actually carry this saying are long out of copyright in the United States: Jomini’s Vie politique et militaire de Napoléon was published in Paris in 1827, and Alison’s History of Europe volume containing the passage in 1836 — each far earlier than the 1931 US public-domain cutoff, and both authors died in the 1860s. The modern eight-word English paraphrase has no identified author or first publication, so no one is in a position to claim it.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Know a source that supports or challenges this? Add a link →

Paste a URL and we’ll check it. This doesn’t change the page — it goes to our review queue, and if it holds up we update the record with a citation.

Fact-check

What actually went wrong here

No one is stealing this line from another author. The problem is subtler and more common: the attribution survived while the words were quietly replaced.

No documented speaker Modern paraphrase

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake” appears in no located primary source. Quote Investigator’s timeline ↗ runs from “false movement” wordings in 1836, 1852 and 1855 through Austin Bierbower’s 1888 “Never interfere with your enemy when he is making a mistake” — and Wikiquote files the modern form under “Attributed” ↗, citing only The Military Quotation Book (2002), p. 93.

Popularised by Theodore H. White Rival variant

The other widely shared form owes much of its currency to White’s The Making of the President 1964, published in 1965, in which the President is said to obey “Napoleon’s maxim” against Goldwater: “Never interfere with the enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself.” Snopes transcribes the passage ↗.

Baron Antoine-Henri Jomini Not an eyewitness

Jomini’s 1827 book is the oldest record of the line — but its full title, …racontée par lui-même au tribunal de César, d’Alexandre et de Frédéric, announces that it is written in Napoleon’s own first-person voice as a literary device, six years after his death in 1821. And the Fondation Napoléon records that, Ney’s 6th corps having been sent to the Tyrol, Jomini was not present at Austerlitz ↗.

Napoleon very likely did express this idea — the record for it is nearly two centuries deep, and Snopes rates the attribution “Correct Attribution” ↗. But the eight words everyone shares are a modern polish, not a transcript; as Quote Investigator puts it, “a version has been attributed to Napoleon for more than a century and three-quarters.”

Context

Twenty minutes at Pratzen

In Archibald Alison’s 1836 telling, the scene is the morning of the Austerlitz battle in 1805. The allied columns are sliding off the Pratzen heights to swing at the French right, opening the centre. Napoleon’s marshals see the opportunity and press him to give the signal. He turns instead to Soult and asks how long it would take to reach the heights from where they stand. “Less than twenty minutes,” Soult answers — his troops are down in the valley, hidden by mist and bivouac smoke. Napoleon tells them to wait the twenty minutes out, and gives the reason that became the maxim.

That is the whole point of the line, and it is why the modern rewrite subtly weakens it. A false movement is something the enemy is actively doing — a march, a redeployment, a commitment you can watch unfold and let run to its end. A mistake is a judgement you pass afterwards. The 1805 version is operational patience; the internet version is a wisecrack about letting someone embarrass themselves. Both are useful. Only one of them is documented.

A false movement — not a mistake.

Why so much Napoleon survives only second-hand

Napoleon left dispatches, orders and correspondence, but no authorised book of maxims. The bulk of his memorable sayings reach us through intermediaries: staff officers, Saint Helena memoirists, and historians reconstructing conversations decades later. Each retelling is an opportunity for the phrasing to be smoothed.

This line is a clean specimen of that process. Between 1827 and the present it passed through French, into English, out of the Austerlitz setting, from “false movement” to “mistake,” from “interfere” to “interrupt,” and from a described incident into a free-floating aphorism — getting shorter and sharper at every step, which is exactly what makes it so shareable and so hard to source.

Explore

Filed under

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

Wisdom Power Failure

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.

Quote Investigator: “Never Interfere With an Enemy While He’s in the Process of Destroying Himself”quoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation. Traces the maxim from Alison (1836) through 1852, 1855, 1879, Bierbower (1888), Woodrow Wilson (1916) and a 1932 newspaper column to Theodore H. White’s 1965 bestseller, finding no exact match for the modern wording in 1800s sources.
Snopes: Did Napoleon say, ‘Never interrupt your enemy while he’s making a mistake’?snopes.com

Rated “Correct Attribution” with the caveat that Napoleon said it in different words. Transcribes the full Alison 1836 passage at p. 476 and identifies the French original in Jomini (1827) at p. 180.
Jomini, Vie politique et militaire de Napoléon (Paris: Anselin, 1827)archive.org

Scanned copy of the 1827 work that carries the earliest documented form of the maxim. Internet Archive metadata confirms author, publisher, city and year.
Wikiquote: Napoleon — Attributeden.wikiquote.org

Lists “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake” in the Attributed section, sourced only to James Charlton’s The Military Quotation Book (2002), p. 93 — not to any Napoleonic document.
Fondation Napoléon: Jomini, Antoine Henri, Baron denapoleon.org

Scholarly biography of the man behind the earliest source. States that because Ney’s 6th corps was sent to the Tyrol, Jomini was not present at Austerlitz, and dates the 14-volume Vie politique et militaire to 1827.
Napoleon — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Biographical baseline: born 15 August 1769, died 5 May 1821, Emperor of the French 1804–1814 and again in 1815.

The man the line is pinned on

Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte

1769–1821 · Emperor of the French and military commander

Born in Corsica on 15 August 1769, Napoleon rose through the armies of the French Revolution to become First Consul in 1799 and Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1814, and again briefly in 1815. He died in exile on Saint Helena on 5 May 1821. Because he left no single authorised book of maxims and was written about relentlessly by staff officers, memoirists and rival historians, Napoleon is one of the most quote-magnetised figures in history — most of what circulates under his name reaches us second-hand, through someone else’s reconstruction.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest documented source

Antoine-Henri Jomini, Vie politique et militaire de Napoléon, racontée par lui-même au tribunal de César, d’Alexandre et de Frédéric (Paris: Anselin, 1827), 180; earliest English record in Archibald Alison, History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution… (W. Blackwood and Sons, 1836), 476. The popular modern wording matches no located primary source.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake’?” Last verified 27 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/never-interrupt-your-enemy-when-he-is-making-a-mistake/

Copied