Charles de Gaulle Quotes

You start out giving your hat, then you give your coat, then your shirt, then your skin and finally your soul.

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?

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

Betting against gold is the same as betting on governments. He who bets on governments and government money bets against 6,000 years of recorded human history.

Deliberation is a function of the many; action is the function of one.

Belgium is a country invented by the British to annoy the French.

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

Nothing more enhances authority than silence. It is the crowning virtue of the strong, the refuge of the weak, the modesty of the proud, the pride of the humble, the prudence of the wise, and the sense of fools. To speak is to . . . dissipate one's strength; whereas what action demands is concentration. Silence is a necessary preliminary to the ordering of one's thoughts.

I predict you will sink step by step into a bottomless quagmire, however much you spend in men and money." (On Vietnam War)

Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.

Hearing Mass is the ceremony I most favor during my travels. Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back.

He who laughs last didn't get the joke.

One does not arrest Voltaire.

Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.

The true statesman is the one who is willing to take risks.

Whatever happens, the flame of the French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished. Tomorrow, as today, I will speak on Radio London.

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

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

Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.

Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.

I am not bad, thank you. But don't worry, one of these days I shall certainly die.

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

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

Difficulty attracts the man of character because it is in embracing it that he realizes himself

You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.

China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.

France cannot be France without greatness.

Politics, when it is an art and a service, not an exploitation, is about acting for an ideal through realities.

It's better to have a bad plan then no plan at all.

You'll live. Only the best get killed.

Victory often goes to the army that makes the least mistakes, not the most brilliant plans.

I'm not at all embarrassed to be a revolutionary.

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

Whereas ordinary officers must be content with behaving correctly in front of their men, the great leaders have always carefully stage-managed their effects.

Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the fate of the world.

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.

France has no friends, only interests.

Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.

In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.

The perfection preached in the gospels never yet built an empire. Every man of action has a strong dose of egotism, pride, hardness, and cunning.

How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?

Gentlemen, I am ready for the questions to my answers.

As an adolescent I was convinced that France would have to go through gigantic trials, that the interest of life consisted in one day rendering her some signal service and that I would have the occasion to do so.

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

One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day was; one cannot judge life until death.

The graveyards are full of indispensable men.

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.

Adversity attracts the man of character. He seeks out the bitter joy of responsibility.