Best 104 quotes of Charles De Gaulle on MyQuotes

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

Always choose the hardest way, on it you will not find opponents

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.

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.

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

At the root of our civilization, there is the freedom of each person of thought, of belief, of opinion, of work, of leisure.

Authority doesn't work without prestige, or prestige without distance.

Belgium is a country invented by the British to annoy the French.

Betting against gold is the same as betting on governments. He who bets on governments and government money bets against 6,000 years of recorded human history.

Character is the virtue of hard times.

China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.

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

Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.

Difficulty attracts the characterful man, for it is by grasping it that he fulfils himself.

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

Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.

Don't think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. The cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.

Every Frenchman wants to enjoy one or more privileges; that's the way he shows his passion for equality

Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own.

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

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

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

France cannot be France without greatness.

France has lost the battle but she has not lost the war.

France has no friends, only interests.

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

Hearing Mass is the ceremony I most favor during my travels. Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back.

He who laughs last didn't get the joke.

History does not teach fatalism. There are moments when the will of a handful of free men breaks through determinism and opens up new roads.

How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?

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

I am not bad, thank you. But don't worry, one of these days I shall certainly die.

I cannot prevent the French from being French

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

I have heard your views. They do not harmonize with mine. The decision is taken unanimously.

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 might have had trouble saving France in 1946 - I didn't have television then.

I'm not at all embarrassed to be a revolutionary.

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

In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.

In the tumult of men and events, solitude was my temptation; now it is my friend. What other satisfaction can be sought once you have confronted History?

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

I predict you will sink step by step into a bottomless quagmire, however much you spend in men and money." (On Vietnam War)

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

It is not tolerable, it is not possible, that from so much death, so much sacrifice and ruin, so much heroism, a greater and better humanity shall not emerge.

It's better to have a bad plan then no plan at all.

It's impossible in normal times to rally a nation that has 265 kinds of cheese.

It so happens that the world is undergoing a transformation to which no change that has yet occurred can be compared, either in scope or in rapidity.

It will not be any European statesman who will unite Europe: Europe will be united by the Chinese.

I wouldn't mind dying for France, but not for Air France.