I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French.
More quotes from Charles De Gaulle
Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.
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I grew up to always respect authority and respect those in charge.
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Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.
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The graveyards are full of indispensable men.
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Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.
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I respect only those who resist me, but I cannot tolerate them.
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France has lost the battle but she has not lost the war.
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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?
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One does not arrest Voltaire.
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A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.
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Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses; they last while they last.
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I might have had trouble saving France in 1946 – I didn’t have television then.
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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.
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How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?
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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.
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The leader must aim high, see big, judge widely, thus setting himself apart form the ordinary people who debate in narrow confines.
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I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French.
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We are not here to laugh.
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The sword is the axis of the world and its power is absolute.
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For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her.
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It is not tolerable, it is not possible, that from so much death, so much sacrifice and ruin, so much heroism, a greater and better humanity shall not emerge.
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There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt.
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Never relinquish the initiative.
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I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
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When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. We are angry at each other much of the time.
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When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself.
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A great country worthy of the name does not have any friends.
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Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.
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China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.
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I have against me the bourgeois, the military and the diplomats, and for me, only the people who take the Metro.
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Old age is a shipwreck.
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You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.
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France cannot be France without greatness.
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Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.
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No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.
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One cannot govern with ‘buts’.
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The true statesman is the one who is willing to take risks.
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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.
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The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.
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I was France.
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You start out giving your hat, then you give your coat, then your shirt, then your skin and finally your soul.
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Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.
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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.
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In politics it is necessary either to betray one’s country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.
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The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects.
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In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.
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Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back.
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Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.
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You’ll live. Only the best get killed.
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You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.
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No nation has friends only interests.
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Authority doesn’t work without prestige, or prestige without distance.
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Once upon a time there was an old country, wrapped up in habit and caution. We have to transform our old France into a new country and marry it to its time.
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To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.
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I have heard your views. They do not harmonize with mine. The decision is taken unanimously.
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Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.
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Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
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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.
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