Charles de Gaulle Quotes - Page 4

I cannot prevent the French from being French

What do you take me for, an idiot?

I always thought I was Jeanne d'Arc and Bonaparte. How little one knows oneself.

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

Adversity attracts the man of character. He seeks out the bitter joy of responsibility.

For all of us Frenchmen, the guiding rule of our epoch is to be faithful to France.

A great country worthy of the name does not have any friends.

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!

Whatever happens, the flame of the French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished. Tomorrow, as today, I will speak on Radio London.

My dear and old country, here we are once again together faced with a heavy trial.

The true statesman is the one who is willing to take risks.

The evolution toward Communism is inevitable.

Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back upon himself.

I am a man who belongs to no-one and who belongs to everyone.

I have against me the bourgeois, the military and the diplomats, and for me, only the people who take the Métro.

How can one conceive of a one-party system in a country that has over two hundred varieties of cheese?

Leaders of men are later remembered less for the usefulness of what they have achieved than for the sweep of their endeavors.

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

Men can have friends, statesmen cannot.

France was built with swords. The fleur-de-lis, symbol of national unity, is only the image of a spear with three pikes.

I grew up to always respect authority and respect those in charge.

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

Why do you think that at 67 I would start a career as a dictator?

Old age is a shipwreck.

Long live Montreal, Long live Quebec! Long live Free Quebec!