Charles de Gaulle quotes:

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A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.
How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?
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.
China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.
You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.
In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.
There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt.
Old age is a shipwreck.
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.
Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.
Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.
Belgium is a country invented by the British to annoy the French.
A great country worthy of the name does not have any friends.
The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects.
Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.
I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.
You start out giving your hat, then you give your coat, then your shirt, then your skin and finally your soul.
I respect only those who resist me, but I cannot tolerate them.
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?
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.
Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.
No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.
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.
Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses; they last while they last.
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.
Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back.
Don't think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. The cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.
For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her.
How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?
Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.
Deliberation is a function of the many; action is the function of one.
History does not teach fatalism. There are moments when the will of a handful of free men breaks through determinism and opens up new roads.
Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.
To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.
In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.
Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the fate of the world.
Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back upon himself.
There can be no other criterion, no other standard than gold. Yes, gold which never changes, which can be shaped into ingots, bars, coins, which has no nationality and which is eternally and universally accepted as the unalterable fiduciary value par excellence.
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.
I cannot prevent the French from being French
France cannot be France without greatness.
When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself.
The graveyards are full of indispensable men.
Never relinquish the initiative.
I predict you will sink step by step into a bottomless quagmire, however much you spend in men and money." (On Vietnam War)
Long live free Quebec!
Long live Montreal, Long live Quebec! Long live Free Quebec!
Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop
In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country of the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.
One does not arrest Voltaire.
France has lost a battle. But France has not lost the war
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.
The Jews remain what they have been at all times: an elite people, self-confident and domineering.
France was built with swords. The fleur-de-lis, symbol of national unity, is only the image of a spear with three pikes.
Authority doesn't work without prestige, or prestige without distance.
Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.
Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.
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.
The leader must aim high, see big, judge widely, thus setting himself apart form the ordinary people who debate in narrow confines.
The sword is the axis of the world and its power is absolute.
France has lost the battle but she has not lost the war.
I have against me the bourgeois, the military and the diplomats, and for me, only the people who take the Metro.
One cannot govern with 'buts'.
When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. We are angry at each other much of the time.
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.
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.
No nation has friends only interests.
Always choose the hardest way, on it you will not find opponents
Soyons fermes, purs et fidÃ¨les ; au bout de nos peines, il y a la plus grande gloire du monde, celle des hommes qui n'ont pas cÃ©dÃ©. [Let us be firm, pure and faithful; at the end of our sorrow, there is the greatest glory of the world, that of the men who did not give in.]
Nothing more enhances authority than silence. It is the crowning virtue of the strong, the refuge of the weak, the modesty of the proud, the pride of the humble, the prudence of the wise, and the sense of fools. To speak is to . . . dissipate one's strength; whereas what action demands is concentration. Silence is a necessary preliminary to the ordering of one's thoughts.
Character is the virtue of hard times.
We may go to the moon, but that' s not very far. The greatest distance we have to cover still lies within us.
War stirs in men's hearts the mud of their worst instincts. It puts a premium on violence, nourishes hatred, and gives free rein to cupidity. It crushes the weak, exalts the unworthy, and bolsters tyranny .. .Time and time again it has destroyed all ordered living, devastated hope, and put the prophets to death.
The future does not belong to men...
No, I'm not talking about the Russians; I mean the Germans. In spite of everything, to have pushed so far!
Gentlemen, I am ready for the questions to my answers.
The leader is always alone before bad fates.
It will not be any European statesman who will unite Europe: Europe will be united by the Chinese.
France has no friends, only interests.
You'll live. Only the best get killed.
I grew up to always respect authority and respect those in charge.
What do you take me for, an idiot?
He who laughs last didn't get the joke.
Nothing builds authority up like silence, splendor of the strong and shelter of the weak.
The perfection preached in the gospels never yet built an empire. Every man of action has a strong dose of egotism, pride, hardness, and cunning.
Only by coming to grips with difficulty can you realize your full potential.
Adversity attracts the man of character. He seeks out the bitter joy of responsibility.
At the root of our civilization, there is the freedom of each person of thought, of belief, of opinion, of work, of leisure.
Genius sometimes consists of knowing when to stop.
Men are of no importance. What counts is who commands.
How can one conceive of a one-party system in a country that has over two hundred varieties of cheese?
I always thought I was Jeanne d'Arc and Bonaparte. How little one knows oneself.
I am a man who belongs to no-one and who belongs to everyone.
Every Frenchman wants to enjoy one or more privileges; that's the way he shows his passion for equality
In the tumult of great events, solitude was what I hoped for. Now it is what I love. How is it possible to be contented with anything else when one has come face to face with history?
Betting against gold is the same as betting on governments. He who bets on governments and government money bets against 6,000 years of recorded human history.
For all of us Frenchmen, the guiding rule of our epoch is to be faithful to France.
Whatever happens, the flame of the French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished. Tomorrow, as today, I will speak on Radio London.
It's better to have a bad plan then no plan at all.
Victory often goes to the army that makes the least mistakes, not the most brilliant plans.
Politics, when it is an art and a service, not an exploitation, is about acting for an ideal through realities.
Today we are crushed by the sheer weight of the mechanized forces hurled against us, but we can still look to the future in which even greater mechanized forces will bring us victory. Therein lies the destiny of the world.
Difficulty attracts the characterful man, for it is by grasping it that he fulfils himself.
I am not bad, thank you. But don't worry, one of these days I shall certainly die.
No policy is worth anything outside of reality.
One can unite the French only under the threat of danger. One cannot simply bring together a nation that produces 265 kinds of cheese.
Why do you think that at 67 I would start a career as a dictator ?
My dear and old country, here we are once again together faced with a heavy trial.
Old France, weighed down with history, prostrated by wars and revolutions, endlessly vacillating from greatness to decline, but revived, century after century, by the genius of renewal!
The cemetery is filled with indispensable men.
The desire of privilege and the taste of equality are the dominant and contradictory passions of the French of all times.
These people really aim very badly.
I'm not at all embarrassed to be a revolutionary.
Difficulty attracts the man of character because it is in embracing it that he realizes himself
The evolution toward Communism is inevitable.
The cabinet has no propositions to make, but orders to give.
Men can have friends, statesmen cannot.

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