Quotes from Charles de Gaulle

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

Leaders of men are later remembered less for the usefulness of what they have achieved than for the sweep of their endeavors.

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

The cemetery is filled with indispensable men.

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.

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

We may go to the moon, but that' s not very far. The greatest distance we have to cover still lies within us.

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.

I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

It will not be any European statesman who will unite Europe: Europe will be united by the Chinese.

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

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

How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?

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

Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.

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

Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.

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?

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

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.

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.

When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself.

The sword is the axis of the world and its power is absolute.

China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.