Best Quotes by Charles de Gaulle (Top 10)
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How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?
Charles de Gaulle
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The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.
Charles de Gaulle
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Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.
Charles de Gaulle
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Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.
Charles de Gaulle
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I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
Charles de Gaulle
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Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.
Charles de Gaulle
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A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.
Charles de Gaulle
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The graveyards are full of indispensable men.
Charles de Gaulle
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In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.
Charles de Gaulle
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You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.
Charles de Gaulle
More Charles de Gaulle Quotes
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Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.
Charles de Gaulle
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Soyons fermes, purs et fidèles ; au bout de nos peines, il y a la plus grande gloire du monde, celle des hommes qui n'ont pas cédé. [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
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When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. We are angry at each other much of the time.
Charles de Gaulle
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It will not be any European statesman who will unite Europe: Europe will be united by the Chinese.
Charles de Gaulle
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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
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China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.
Charles de Gaulle
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A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.
Charles de Gaulle
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Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.
Charles de Gaulle
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France has lost a battle. But France has not lost the war
Charles de Gaulle
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I have heard your views. They do not harmonize with mine. The decision is taken unanimously.
Charles de Gaulle
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Politics, when it is an art and a service, not an exploitation, is about acting for an ideal through realities.
Charles de Gaulle
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There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt.
Charles de Gaulle
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Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses; they last while they last.
Charles de Gaulle
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Old age is a shipwreck.
Charles de Gaulle
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The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects.
Charles de Gaulle
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In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.
Charles de Gaulle
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You start out giving your hat, then you give your coat, then your shirt, then your skin and finally your soul.
Charles de Gaulle
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Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.
Charles de Gaulle
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You'll live. Only the best get killed.
Charles de Gaulle
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I respect only those who resist me, but I cannot tolerate them.
Charles de Gaulle
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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
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Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back.
Charles de Gaulle
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The sword is the axis of the world and its power is absolute.
Charles de Gaulle
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For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her.
Charles de Gaulle
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My dear and old country, here we are once again together faced with a heavy trial.
Charles de Gaulle
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No nation has friends only interests.
Charles de Gaulle
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Authority doesn't work without prestige, or prestige without distance.
Charles de Gaulle
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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
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How can one conceive of a one-party system in a country that has over two hundred varieties of cheese?
Charles de Gaulle
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Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.
Charles de Gaulle
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To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.
Charles de Gaulle