Charles De Gaulle

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

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.

Today we are crushed by the sheer weight of the mechanized forces hurled against us, but we can still look to the future in which even greater mechanized forces will bring us victory. Therein lies the destiny of the world.

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.

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

Soyons fermes, purs et fidèles ; au bout de nos peines, il y a la plus grande gloire du monde, celle des hommes qui n'ont pas cédé. [Let us be firm, pure and faithful; at the end of our sorrow, there is the greatest glory of the world, that of the men who did not give in.]

A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.

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

I have against me the bourgeois, the military and the diplomats, and for me, only the people who take the Metro.

Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.

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

France has no friends, only interests.

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

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?

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.

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

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

You'll live. Only the best get killed.

Only by coming to grips with difficulty can you realize your full potential.

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses; they last while they last.

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