Charles de Gaulle

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

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.

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.

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.

France cannot be France without greatness.

France has lost the battle but she has not lost the war.

Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.

How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?

I grew up to always respect authority and respect those in charge.

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

In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.

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?

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.