Quotes from Charles de Gaulle

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

I am a man who belongs to no-one and who belongs to everyone.

Men are of no importance. What counts is who commands.

Men can have friends, statesmen cannot.

Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.

A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.

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

The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects.

Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown

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

No nation has friends only interests

Old age is a shipwreck.

For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her.

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

Since those whose duty it was to hold the sword of France have let it fall, I have picked up its broken point.

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

I always thought I was Jeanne d'Arc and Bonaparte. How little one knows oneself.

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

If I live, I will fight, wherever I must, as long as I must, until the enemy is defeated and the national stain washed clean.

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. People get the history they deserve.

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

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.

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

You'll live. Only the best get killed.