France cannot be France without greatness.

Difficulty attracts the characterful man, for it is by grasping it that he fulfils himself.

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?

They really are bad shots.

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.

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

France has no friends, only interests.