Charles de Gaulle
Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.Collection: Patriotism
The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.Collection: Pet
Old age is a shipwreck.Collection: Age
I respect only those who resist me, but I cannot tolerate them.Collection: Respect
I was France.Collection: History
Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.Collection: Politics
In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.Collection: Politics
Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.Collection: Power
The true statesman is the one who is willing to take risks.Collection: Chance
Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.Collection: Men
Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.Collection: Men
I grew up to always respect authority and respect those in charge.Collection: Respect
Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.Collection: Politics
In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.Collection: Politics
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.Collection: History
You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.Collection: Imagination
The graveyards are full of indispensable men.Collection: Men
You'll live. Only the best get killed.Collection: Best
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.Collection: Death
I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.Collection: Politics
How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?Collection: Government
The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects.Collection: Leadership
France has lost the battle but she has not lost the war.Collection: War
No nation has friends only interests.
There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt.
For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her.
You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.
Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.
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.
China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.
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.
To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.
One does not arrest Voltaire.
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.
No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.
The sword is the axis of the world and its power is absolute.
When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself.
You start out giving your hat, then you give your coat, then your shirt, then your skin and finally your soul.
I have against me the bourgeois, the military and the diplomats, and for me, only the people who take the Metro.
Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back.
Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.
France cannot be France without greatness.
The leader must aim high, see big, judge widely, thus setting himself apart form the ordinary people who debate in narrow confines.
Authority doesn't work without prestige, or prestige without distance.
Never relinquish the initiative.
Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.
When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. We are angry at each other much of the time.
Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses; they last while they last.
I have heard your views. They do not harmonize with mine. The decision is taken unanimously.
A great country worthy of the name does not have any friends.