“Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“The leader must aim high, see big, judge widely, thus setting himself apart form the ordinary people who debate in narrow confines.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“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.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“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.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“The graveyards are full of indispensable men.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“Never relinquish the initiative.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“No nation has friends only interests.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. We are angry at each other much of the time.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“Old age is a shipwreck.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“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.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“You start out giving your hat, then you give your coat, then your shirt, then your skin and finally your soul.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“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.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“The sword is the axis of the world and its power is absolute.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“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.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“Authority doesn’t work without prestige, or prestige without distance.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?”
― Charles de Gaulle
“In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“France cannot be France without greatness.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“I have against me the bourgeois, the military and the diplomats, and for me, only the people who take the Metro.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“A great country worthy of the name does not have any friends.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“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?”
― Charles de Gaulle
“One does not arrest Voltaire.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“I respect only those who resist me, but I cannot tolerate them.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“We are not here to laugh.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“I was France.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“I have heard your views. They do not harmonize with mine. The decision is taken unanimously.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“I might have had trouble saving France in 1946 – I didn’t have television then.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“You’ll live. Only the best get killed.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“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.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“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.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“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.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“I grew up to always respect authority and respect those in charge.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses; they last while they last.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“In politics it is necessary either to betray one’s country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“The true statesman is the one who is willing to take risks.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“One cannot govern with ‘buts’.”
― Charles de Gaulle
“France has lost the battle but she has not lost the war.”
― Charles de Gaulle
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