Georges Clemenceau Quotes

22 Sourced Quotes

America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.

Georges Clemenceau
There are only two perfectly useless things in this world. One is an appendix and the other is Poincaré.

Georges Clemenceau
A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he's not a man of action. It is as if a tennis player before returning a ball stopped to think about his views of the physical and mental advantages of tennis. You must act as you breathe.

Georges Clemenceau
Americans have no capacity for abstract thought, and make bad coffee.

Georges Clemenceau
God Almighty was satisfied with Ten Commandments. Mr Wilson requires Fourteen Points.

Georges Clemenceau
I have come to the conclusion that force is right. Why is this chicken here? (pointing to his plate). Because it was not strong enough to resist those who wanted to kill it. And a very good thing too!

Georges Clemenceau
My home policy? I wage war. My foreign policy? I wage war. Always, everywhere, I wage war.

Georges Clemenceau
My son is 22 years old. If he had not become a Communist at 22, I would have disowned him. If he is still a Communist at 30, I will do it then.

Georges Clemenceau
The Germans may take Paris, but that will not prevent me from going on with the war. We will fight on the Loire, we will fight on the Garronne, we will fight even in the Pyrenees. And if at last we are driven off the Pyrenees, we will continue the war at sea.

Georges Clemenceau
Yes, we have won the war, and not without difficulty. But now we must win the peace, and perhaps that will be harder.

Georges Clemenceau
A man's life is interesting primarily when he has failed — I well know. For it's a sign that he tried to surpass himself.

Georges Clemenceau
When Tardieu asked him why he always gave in to Lloyd George:
What do you expect when I'm between two men of whom one [Lloyd George] thinks he is Napoleon and the other [Woodrow Wilson] thinks he is Jesus Christ?

Georges Clemenceau
War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.

Georges Clemenceau
There is no passion like that of a functionary for his function.

Georges Clemenceau
Mr. Wilson bores me with his Fourteen Points; why, God Almighty has only Ten!

Georges Clemenceau
It is easier to make war than make peace.

Georges Clemenceau
War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.

Georges Clemenceau
My home policy: I wage war. My foreign policy: I wage war. All the time I wage war.

Georges Clemenceau
In the distance huge trees were still blazing, around us was a waste of ashes and of half-consumed boughs, and the falling rain seemed only to quicken the dying conflagration. In some of the great green boles were fearful gaping wounds through which the sap was oozing, while some tall trees still stretched to heaven their triumphant crown of foliage above a trunk all charred that would never sprout again. The Brazilians contemplate spectacles such as this with a wholly indifferent eye, and, indeed, even with satisfaction, for they see in the ruin only a promise of future harvests. To me the scene possessed only the horror of a slaughter-house.

Georges Clemenceau
If you don't vote Socialist/Communist before you are twenty, you have no heart – if you do vote Socialist/Communist after you are twenty, you have no head.

Georges Clemenceau
When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

Georges Clemenceau
Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

Georges Clemenceau