Charles de Gaulle

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

You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.

How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?

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.

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

The leader must aim high, see big, judge widely, thus setting himself apart form the ordinary people who debate in narrow confines.

I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.

The sword is the axis of the world and its power is absolute.

In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.

Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.

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.

Old age is a shipwreck.

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

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

The graveyards are full of indispensable men.

Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.

We are not here to laugh.

You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.