Charles de Gaulle Quotes Proverbs, and Aphorisms
- November 22, 1890 – November 9, 1970
- French
- Military Leader, Statesman, President of France, Founder of the Fifth Republic
Charles de Gaulle was a French military leader and statesman who became a symbol of French resistance during World War II and later founded the Fifth Republic, serving as its first president from 1959 to 1969. During the war, he led the Free French Forces from exile, refusing to accept the Nazi-aligned Vichy regime. Postwar, he helped restore France’s political stability and pursued policies of national independence, notably withdrawing from NATO’s integrated command and developing France’s own nuclear deterrent. Though criticized for his authoritarian style and controversial handling of decolonization, especially in Algeria, de Gaulle is revered for his patriotism, leadership, and role in shaping modern France.
- “I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”
- “One does not arrest Voltaire.”
- “I have against me the bourgeois, the military and the diplomats, and for me, only the people who take the Metro.”
- “China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.”
- “Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back.”
- “The true statesman is the one who is willing to take risks.”
- “You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.”
- “No nation has friends only interests.”
- “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”
- “How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?”
- “You start out giving your hat, then you give your coat, then your shirt, then your skin and finally your soul.”
- “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.”
- “When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. We are angry at each other much of the time.”
- “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.”
- “The leader must aim high, see big, judge widely, thus setting himself apart from the ordinary people who debate in narrow confines.”
- “There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt.”
- “We are not here to laugh.”
- “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?”
- “The sword is the axis of the world and its power is absolute.”
- “I respect only those who resist me, but I cannot tolerate them.”
- “A great country worthy of the name does not have any friends.”
- “A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.”
- “Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.”
- “Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.”
- “France cannot be France without greatness.”
- “Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.”
- “In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.”
- “France has lost the battle but she has not lost the war.”
- “For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her.”
- “The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects.”
- “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.”
- “Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses; they last while they last.”
- “Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.”
- “Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.”
- “Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.”
- “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.”
- “To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.”
- “Old age is a shipwreck.”
- “I have heard your views. They do not harmonize with mine. The decision is taken unanimously.”
- “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.”
- “I was France.”
- “One cannot govern with ‘buts’.”
- “You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.”
- “The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “I grew up to always respect authority and respect those in charge.”
- “Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.”
- “Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”
- “Never relinquish the initiative.”
- “No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself.”
- “In politics it is necessary either to betray one’s country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.”
- “You’ll live. Only the best get killed.”
- “The graveyards are full of indispensable men.”