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

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

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

Whereas ordinary officers must be content with behaving correctly in front of their men, the great leaders have always carefully stage-managed their effects.

No, I’m not talking about the Russians; I mean the Germans. In spite of everything, to have pushed so far!

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

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

The future does not belong to men.

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

France cannot be France without greatness.

Once upon a time there was an old country, wrapped up in habit and caution. We have to transform our old France into a new country and marry it to its time.

When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself.

One cannot govern with ‘buts’.

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.

When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. We are angry at each other much of the time.

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

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

I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases.

I think the word of the United States has been as good as gold in its international dealings and its agreements.

How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?

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

As secretary of state it’s been an enormous honor to represent this great country that I love so much – I have really seen that our great strengths are in the ability of people to reach their potential here.

The partisan strife in which the people of the country are permitted to periodically engage does not tend to the development of ugly traits of character, but merely discloses those that preexist.

Fame for me is like a place, a country I’m taking a tour through.

We are fighting for an unapologetic movement for economic, social, and racial justice in the United States.