Charles De Gaulle Quotes
The founding president of France's Fifth Republic, serving from 1958 to 1969. He gained world fame as the symbol of French resistance during World War II.
(1890 - 1970)
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A great country worthy of the name does not have any friends.
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A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.
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Always go for the highest position, it is generally the least crowded.
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Anything can happen someday, even that an act conforming to honour and honesty can end up, at the end of the line, as a good political decision.
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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.
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At the root of our civilization, there is the freedom of each person of thought, of belief, of opinion, of work, of leisure.
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Authority doesn't work without prestige, or prestige without distance.
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Before such a prodigious career, judgement is torn between blame and admiration.
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Character is the virtue of hard times.
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China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.
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Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back.
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Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.
[Action]
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Difficulty attracts the characterful man, for it is by grasping it that he fulfils himself.
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Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.
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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.
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Every man of action has a strong dose of egoism, pride, hardness, and cunning. But all those things will be regarded as high qualities if he can make them the means to achieve great ends.
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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.
[Action]
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For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her.
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France cannot be France without greatness.
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France has lost the battle but she has not lost the war.
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