Genius sometimes consists of knowing when to stop.

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.

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

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?

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

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

For all of us Frenchmen, the guiding rule of our epoch is to be faithful to France.