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!

To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.

It's impossible in normal times to rally a nation that has 265 kinds of cheese.

In the tumult of men and events, solitude was my temptation; now it is my friend. What other satisfaction can be sought once you have confronted History?

I might have had trouble saving France in 1946 - I didn't have television then.

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!

History does not teach fatalism. There are moments when the will of a handful of free men breaks through determinism and opens up new roads.