There can be no other criterion, no other standard than gold. Yes, gold which never changes, which can be shaped into ingots, bars, coins, which has no nationality and which is eternally and universally accepted as the unalterable fiduciary value par excellence.

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

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

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

I feel not a person but an instrument of destiny.

How can one conceive of a one-party system in a country that has over two hundred varieties of cheese?

One does not arrest Voltaire.