Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French army officer and statesman who led the Free French Forces against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Republic from 1944 to 1946 in order to restore a republic in France.
All Time Famous Quotes of Charles de Gaulle
1. “Genius sometimes consists of knowing when to stop.”
— Charles de Gaulle
2. “Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.”
— Charles de Gaulle
3. “Always choose the hardest way, on it you will not find opponents.”
— Charles de Gaulle
4. “Belgium is a country invented by the British to annoy the French.”
— Charles de Gaulle
5. “Character is the virtue of hard times.”
— Charles de Gaulle
6. “The graveyards are full of indispensable men.”
— Charles de Gaulle
7. “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”
— Charles de Gaulle
8. “Don’t think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. The cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.”
— Charles de Gaulle
9. “The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.”
— Charles de Gaulle
10. “Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the fate of the world.”
— Charles de Gaulle
11. “Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.”
— Charles de Gaulle
12. “It’s better to have a bad plan then no plan at all.”
— Charles de Gaulle
13. “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
14. “China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.”
— Charles de Gaulle
15. “Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.”
— Charles de Gaulle
16. “A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.”
— Charles de Gaulle
17. “There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt.”
— Charles de Gaulle
18. “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?”
— Charles de Gaulle
19. “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
20. “He who laughs last didn’t get the joke.”
— Charles de Gaulle
21. “Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.”
— Charles de Gaulle
22. “France has lost the battle but she has not lost the war.”
— Charles de Gaulle
23. “You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.”
— Charles de Gaulle
24. “Politics, when it is an art and a service, not an exploitation, is about acting for an ideal through realities.”
— Charles de Gaulle
25. “It will not be any European statesman who will unite Europe: Europe will be united by the Chinese.”
— Charles de Gaulle
26. “For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her.”
— Charles de Gaulle
27. “Only by coming to grips with difficulty can you realize your full potential.”
— Charles de Gaulle
28. “I wouldn’t mind dying for France, but not for Air France.”
— Charles de Gaulle
29. “One does not arrest Voltaire.”
— Charles de Gaulle
30. “What do you take me for, an idiot?”
— Charles de Gaulle
31. “France has no friends, only interests.”
— Charles de Gaulle
32. “One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day was; one cannot judge life until death.”
— Charles de Gaulle
33. “I am a man who belongs to no-one and who belongs to everyone.”
— Charles de Gaulle
34. “Difficulty attracts the characterful man, for it is by grasping it that he fulfils himself.”
— Charles de Gaulle
35. “I respect only those who resist me, but I cannot tolerate them.”
— Charles de Gaulle
36. “At the root of our civilization, there is the freedom of each person of thought, of belief, of opinion, of work, of leisure.”
— Charles de Gaulle
37. “Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.”
— Charles de Gaulle
38. “Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.”
— Charles de Gaulle
39. “Victory often goes to the army that makes the least mistakes, not the most brilliant plans.”
— Charles de Gaulle
40. “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
41. “Long live free Quebec!”
— Charles de Gaulle
42. “There can be no other criterion, no other standard than gold. Yes, gold which never changes, which can be shaped into ingots, bars, coins, which has no nationality and which is eternally and universally accepted as the unalterable fiduciary value par excellence.”
— Charles de Gaulle
43. “Always choose the most difficult way, there you will not meet competitors.”
— Charles de Gaulle
44. “All my life I have had a certain idea of France.”
— Charles de Gaulle
45. “The leader is always alone before bad fates.”
— Charles de Gaulle
46. “I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”
— Charles de Gaulle
47. “Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back upon himself.”
— Charles de Gaulle
48. “I am not bad, thank you. But don’t worry, one of these days I shall certainly die.”
— Charles de Gaulle
49. “Never relinquish the initiative.”
— Charles de Gaulle
50. “Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.”
— Charles de Gaulle
51. “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
52. “Gentlemen, I am ready for the questions to my answers.”
— Charles de Gaulle
53. “When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself.”
— Charles de Gaulle
54. “I grew up to always respect authority and respect those in charge.”
— Charles de Gaulle
55. “Love is the strongest force the world possesses, and yet it is the Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.”
— Charles de Gaulle
56. “Les chercheurs qui cherchent, on en trouve. Les chercheurs qui trouvent, on en cherche.”
— Charles de Gaulle
57. “It’s impossible in normal times to rally a nation that has 265 kinds of cheese.”
— Charles de Gaulle
58. “The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects.”
— Charles de Gaulle
59. “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
60. “Old age is a shipwreck.”
— Charles de Gaulle
61. “History does not teach fatalism. There are moments when the will of a handful of free men breaks through determinism and opens up new roads.”
— Charles de Gaulle
62. “Betting against gold is the same as betting on governments. He who bets on governments and government money bets against 6,000 years of recorded human history.”
— Charles de Gaulle
63. “I cannot prevent the French from being French.”
— Charles de Gaulle
64. “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
65. “France was built with swords. The fleur-de-lis, symbol of national unity, is only the image of a spear with three pikes.”
— Charles de Gaulle
66. “Adversity attracts the man of character. He seeks out the bitter joy of responsibility.”
— Charles de Gaulle
67. “No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.”
— Charles de Gaulle
68. “The evolution toward Communism is inevitable.”
— Charles de Gaulle
69. “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
70. “You start out giving your hat, then you give your coat, then your shirt, then your skin and finally your soul.”
— Charles de Gaulle
71. “The future does not belong to men…”
— Charles de Gaulle
72. “France cannot be France without greatness.”
— Charles de Gaulle
73. “Long live Montreal, Long live Quebec! Long live Free Quebec!”
— Charles de Gaulle
74. “In politics it is necessary either to betray one’s country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.”
— Charles de Gaulle
75. “Deliberation is a function of the many; action is the function of one.”
— Charles de Gaulle
76. “In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.”
— Charles de Gaulle
77. “Authority doesn’t work without prestige, or prestige without distance.”
— Charles de Gaulle
78. “Men are of no importance. What counts is who commands.”
— Charles de Gaulle
79. “The true statesman is the one who is willing to take risks.”
— Charles de Gaulle
80. “I’m not at all embarrassed to be a revolutionary.”
— Charles de Gaulle
81. “I have heard your views. They do not harmonize with mine. The decision is taken unanimously.”
— Charles de Gaulle
82. “Every Frenchman wants to enjoy one or more privileges; that’s the way he shows his passion for equality.”
— Charles de Gaulle
83. “A great country worthy of the name does not have any friends.”
— Charles de Gaulle
84. “No policy is worth anything outside of reality.”
— Charles de Gaulle
85. “Treaties you see are like girls and roses; they last while they last.”
— Charles de Gaulle
86. “I might have had trouble saving France in 1946 – I didn’t have television then.”
— Charles de Gaulle
87. “I feel not a person but an instrument of destiny.”
— Charles de Gaulle
88. “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
89. “I myself have become a Gaullist only little by little.”
— Charles de Gaulle
90. “For all of us Frenchmen, the guiding rule of our epoch is to be faithful to France.”
— Charles de Gaulle
91. “In war, the policy of least exertion always risks being paid for dearly.”
— Charles de Gaulle
92. “To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.”
— Charles de Gaulle
93. “These people really aim very badly.”
— Charles de Gaulle
94. “Men can have friends, statesmen cannot.”
— Charles de Gaulle
95. “The cabinet has no propositions to make, but orders to give.”
— Charles de Gaulle
96. “No, I’m not talking about the Russians; I mean the Germans. In spite of everything, to have pushed so far!”
— Charles de Gaulle
97. “Whatever happens, the flame of the French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished. Tomorrow, as today, I will speak on Radio London.”
— Charles de Gaulle
98. “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
99. “A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.”
— Charles de Gaulle
100. “Nothing builds authority up like silence, splendor of the strong and shelter of the weak.”
— Charles de Gaulle
101. “How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?”
— Charles de Gaulle
102. “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.”
— Charles de Gaulle
103. “The Jews remain what they have been at all times: an elite people, self-confident and domineering.”
— Charles de Gaulle
104. “I always thought I was Jeanne d’Arc and Bonaparte. How little one knows oneself.”
— Charles de Gaulle
105. “Old France, weighed down with history, prostrated by wars and revolutions, endlessly vacillating from greatness to decline, but revived, century after century, by the genius of renewal!”
— Charles de Gaulle
106. “Today we are crushed by the sheer weight of the mechanized forces hurled against us, but we can still look to the future in which even greater mechanized forces will bring us victory. Therein lies the destiny of the world.”
— Charles de Gaulle
107. “My dear and old country, here we are once again together faced with a heavy trial.”
— Charles de Gaulle
108. “The desire of privilege and the taste of equality are the dominant and contradictory passions of the French of all times.”
— Charles de Gaulle
109. “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
110. “You’ll live. Only the best get killed.”
— Charles de Gaulle
111. “How can you govern a country which has two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese?”
— Charles de Gaulle
112. “They really are bad shots.”
— Charles de Gaulle
113. “The perfection preached in the gospels never yet built an empire. Every man of action has a strong dose of egotism, pride, hardness, and cunning.”
— Charles de Gaulle
114. “Leaders of men are later remembered less for the usefulness of what they have achieved than for the sweep of their endeavors.”
— Charles de Gaulle
115. “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
116. “In the tumult of great events, solitude was what I hoped for. Now it is what I love. How is it possible to be contented with anything else when one has come face to face with history?”
— Charles de Gaulle
117. “It so happens that the world is undergoing a transformation to which no change that has yet occurred can be compared, either in scope or in rapidity.”
— Charles de Gaulle
