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

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.

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!

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?

One can unite the French only under the threat of danger. One cannot simply bring together a nation that produces 265 kinds of cheese.

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

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