Charles de Gaulle Quotes

55 Sourced Quotes

Whatever happens, the flame of the French resistance must not and shall not die.

Charles de Gaulle
How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?
Variant: How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?

Charles de Gaulle
Politics, when it is an art and a service, not an exploitation, is about acting for an ideal through realities.

Charles de Gaulle
Since they whose duty it was to wield the sword of France have let it fall shattered to the ground, I have taken up the broken blade.

Charles de Gaulle
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
Politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

Charles de Gaulle
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
Nothing great is done without great men, and they are great because they wanted it.

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

Charles de Gaulle
France has lost a battle, but France has not lost the war.

Charles de Gaulle
Let us be firm, pure and faithful; at the end of our sorrow, there is the greatest glory of the world, that of the men who did not give in.

Charles de Gaulle
Faced by the bewilderment of my countrymen, by the disintegration of a government in thrall to the enemy, by the fact that the institutions of my country are incapable, at the moment, of functioning, I General de Gaulle, a French soldier and military leader, realize that I now speak for France.

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
There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt.

Charles de Gaulle
No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.

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

Charles de Gaulle
Vive le Québec Libre!
Long live Free Quebec!

Charles de Gaulle
A foreign military leader whose daring was feared by those who profited by it.
On General Douglas MacArthur

Charles de Gaulle
If I live, I will fight, wherever I must, as long as I must, until the enemy is defeated and the national stain washed clean.

Charles de Gaulle
Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

Charles de Gaulle
After a trip to Washington:
If there were anything I could take back to France with me, it would be Mrs Kennedy.

Charles de Gaulle
Long live Montreal, Long live Quebec! Long live Free Quebec!

Charles de Gaulle
Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.

Charles de Gaulle
Difficulty attracts a man of character, for it is by embracing it that he fulfills himself.

Charles de Gaulle
I respect only those who resist me, but I cannot tolerate them.

Charles de Gaulle
It is better to have a bad method than to have none.

Charles de Gaulle
In war, the policy of least exertion always risks being paid for dearly.

Charles de Gaulle
I talk. It is necessary. Action puts the passions to work, but it is speech that arouses them.

Charles de Gaulle
Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.
Recalled on leaving the presidency

Charles de Gaulle
Authority doesn't work without prestige, or prestige without distance.

Charles de Gaulle