Charles De Gaulle Quotes

“Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.”

— Charles De Gaulle

China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.

— Charles De Gaulle

You'll live. Only the best get killed.

— Charles De Gaulle

“I am a man who belongs to nobody and who belongs to everybody.”

— Charles De Gaulle

“Nothing builds authority up like silence, splendor of the strong and shelter of the weak.”

— Charles De Gaulle

The sword is the axis of the world and grandeur cannot be divided.

— Charles De Gaulle

“No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.”

— Charles De Gaulle

“To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.”

— 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

“The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects.”

— Charles De Gaulle

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

— Charles De Gaulle

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

— Charles De Gaulle

Never relinquish the initiative.

— 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

“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

“The graveyards are full of indispensable men.”

— 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

“Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.”

— Charles De Gaulle

“Authority doesn't work without prestige, or prestige without distance.”

— 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

“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

“One does not arrest Voltaire.”

— 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

“I might have had trouble saving France in 1946 - I didn't have television then.”

— Charles De Gaulle

“When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself.”

— Charles De Gaulle

“We may go to the moon, but that' s not very far. The greatest distance we have to cover still lies within us.”

— Charles De Gaulle

“Always choose the hardest way, on it you will not find opponents”

— Charles De Gaulle

“Nothing more enhances authority than silence. It is the crowning virtue of the strong, the refuge of the weak, the modesty of the proud, the pride of the humble, the prudence of the wise, and the sense of fools. To speak is to ... dissipate one's strength; whereas what action demands is concentration. Silence is a necessary preliminary to the ordering of one's thoughts.”

— Charles De Gaulle

Gentlemen, I am ready for the questions to my answers.

— Charles De Gaulle

“Deliberation is a function of the many; action is the function of one.”

— Charles De Gaulle

“Only by coming to grips with difficulty can you realize your full potential.”

— Charles De Gaulle

“He who laughs last didn't get the joke.”

— Charles De Gaulle

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

“It will not be any European statesman who will unite Europe: Europe will be united by the Chinese.”

— Charles De Gaulle

“Victory often goes to the army that makes the least mistakes, not the most brilliant plans.”

— Charles De Gaulle

“Difficulty attracts the characterful man, for it is by grasping it that he fulfils himself.”

— Charles De Gaulle

“The desire of privilege and the taste of equality are the dominant and contradictory passions of the French of all times.”

— Charles De Gaulle

“I predict you will sink step by step into a bottomless quagmire, however much you spend in men and money. (On Vietnam War)”

— Charles De Gaulle

“Difficulty attracts the man of character because it is in embracing it that he realizes himself”

— Charles De Gaulle

“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

“The cemetery is filled with indispensable men.”

— Charles De Gaulle

One can unite the French only under the threat of danger. One cannot simply bring together a nation that produces 265 kinds of cheese.

— Charles De Gaulle

“The evolution toward Communism is inevitable.”

— Charles De Gaulle

“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

Every Frenchman wants to enjoy one or more privileges; that's the way he shows his passion for equality

— Charles De Gaulle

“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

They really are bad shots.

— Charles De Gaulle

I wouldn't mind dying for France, but not for Air France.

— Charles De Gaulle

“It's impossible in normal times to rally a nation that has 265 kinds of cheese.”

— Charles De Gaulle