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

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?

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.

In war, the policy of least exertion always risks being paid for dearly.

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.

Nothing builds authority up like silence, splendor of the strong and shelter of the weak.

Authority doesn't work without prestige, or prestige without distance.