A great country worthy of the name does not have any friends.
– Charles de Gaulle
And don't forget to get killed.
– Charles de Gaulle
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.
– Charles de Gaulle
Authority doesn't work without prestige, or prestige without distance.
– Charles de Gaulle
China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.
– Charles de Gaulle
Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.
– Charles de Gaulle
Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.
– Charles de Gaulle
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.
– Charles de Gaulle
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.
– Charles de Gaulle
For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her.
– Charles de Gaulle
France cannot be France without greatness.
– Charles de Gaulle
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.
– Charles de Gaulle
How can anyone govern a nation that has 246 different kinds of cheese?
– Charles de Gaulle
I always thought I was Jeanne d'Arc and Bonaparte. How little one knows oneself.
– Charles de Gaulle
I grew up to always respect authority and respect those in charge.
– Charles de Gaulle
I have against me the bourgeois, the military and the diplomats, and for me, only the people who take the Metro.
– Charles de Gaulle
I have heard your views. They do not harmonize with mine. The decision is taken unanimously.
– Charles de Gaulle
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.
– Charles de Gaulle
I might have had trouble saving France in 1946-I didn't have television then.
– Charles de Gaulle
I predict you will sink step by step into a bottomless quagmire, however much you spend in men and money.
– Charles de Gaulle
I respect only those who resist me, but I cannot tolerate them.
– Charles de Gaulle
I was France.
– Charles de Gaulle
In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.
– Charles de Gaulle
In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.
– Charles de Gaulle
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?
– Charles de Gaulle
My dear and old country, here we are once again together faced with a heavy trial.
– Charles de Gaulle
No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.
– Charles de Gaulle
Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.
– Charles de Gaulle
Now I shall return to my village and there will remain at the disposition of the nation.
– Charles de Gaulle
Old age is a shipwreck.
– Charles de Gaulle
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.
– Charles de Gaulle
One cannot govern with 'buts'.
– Charles de Gaulle
Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.
– Charles de Gaulle
Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
– Charles de Gaulle
Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.
– Charles de Gaulle
Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.
– Charles de Gaulle
The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.
– Charles de Gaulle
The graveyards are full of indispensable men.
– Charles de Gaulle
The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects.
– Charles de Gaulle
The leader must aim high, see big, judge widely, thus setting himself apart form the ordinary people who debate in narrow confines.
– Charles de Gaulle
The national task that had been incumbent upon me for 18 years is hereby confirmed.
– Charles de Gaulle
The sword is the axis of the world and its power is absolute.
– Charles de Gaulle
The true statesman is the one who is willing to take risks.
– Charles de Gaulle
There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt.
– Charles de Gaulle
To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.
– Charles de Gaulle
Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.
– Charles de Gaulle
When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. We are angry at each other much of the time.
– Charles de Gaulle
When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself.
– Charles de Gaulle
You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.
– Charles de Gaulle
You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.
– Charles de Gaulle
You start out giving your hat, then you give your coat, then your shirt, then your skin and finally your soul.
– Charles de Gaulle
You'll live. Only the best get killed.
– Charles de Gaulle
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.
– Charles de Gaulle
France has lost the battle but she has not lost the war.