Quotes by Charles de Gaulle

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

“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.”

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

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

“A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.”

“For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her.”

“To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.”

“The cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.”

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

“Never relinquish the initiative.”

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

“When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. So we were often angry at each other.”

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

“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.”

“In politics it is necessary either to betray ones country of the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.”

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

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

“Youll live. Only the best get killed.”

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

“I respect only those who resist me, but I cannot tolerate them.”