Quotes By Charles De Gaulle

Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.

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

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.

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

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.

No nation has friends only interests.

One cannot govern with 'buts'.

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

Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.

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

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

The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects.

When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. We are angry at each other much of the time.

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

You'll live. Only the best get killed.

France cannot be France without greatness.

One does not arrest Voltaire.

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

I might have had trouble saving France in 1946 - I didn't have television then.

The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.

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?

There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt.

To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.

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

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.

Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

I respect only those who resist me, but I cannot tolerate them.

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