Charles de Gaulle

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.

When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. We are angry at each other much of the time.

To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.

I might have had trouble saving France in 1946 - I didn't have television then.

For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her.

The graveyards are full of indispensable men.

When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself.

Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back.

I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French.

You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.

Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.

The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects.

No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.

Old age is a shipwreck.

No nation has friends only interests.

In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.

In the tumult of men and events, solitude was my temptation; now it is my friend. What other satisfaction can be sought once you have confronted History?

France has lost the battle but she has not lost the war.

Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.

The leader must aim high, see big, judge widely, thus setting himself apart form the ordinary people who debate in narrow confines.

I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

I respect only those who resist me, but I cannot tolerate them.

Once upon a time there was an old country, wrapped up in habit and caution. We have to transform our old France into a new country and marry it to its time.

In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.

Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.

I have heard your views. They do not harmonize with mine. The decision is taken unanimously.

The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.

A great country worthy of the name does not have any friends.

There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt.

Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.

You start out giving your hat, then you give your coat, then your shirt, then your skin and finally your soul.

Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own.

Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.

Never relinquish the initiative.

A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.

France cannot be France without greatness.

Hearing Mass is the ceremony I most favor during my travels. Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back.

Only peril can bring the French together. One can't impose unity out of the blue on a country that has 265 different kinds of cheese.

I grew up to always respect authority and respect those in charge.

The sword is the axis of the world and its power is absolute.

Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.

One cannot govern with 'buts'.

China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.

You'll live. Only the best get killed.

I have against me the bourgeois, the military and the diplomats, and for me, only the people who take the Metro.

I was France.

Authority doesn't work without prestige, or prestige without distance.

Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.

As an adolescent I was convinced that France would have to go through gigantic trials, that the interest of life consisted in one day rendering her some signal service and that I would have the occasion to do so.

You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.

The true statesman is the one who is willing to take risks.

It is not tolerable, it is not possible, that from so much death, so much sacrifice and ruin, so much heroism, a greater and better humanity shall not emerge.

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses; they last while they last.