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