“One cannot govern with ‘buts’.”

Never relinquish the initiative.

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

Men are of no importance. What counts is who commands.

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

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

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.

Difficulty attracts the man of character because it is in embracing it that he realizes himself.

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

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.

The leader is always alone before bad fates.

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

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

Love is the strongest force the world possesses, and yet it is the Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.

The leader must aim high, see big, judge widely, thus setting himself apart form the ordinary people who debate in narrow confines.

These people really aim very badly.

Only peril can bring the French together. One can’t impose unity out of the blue on a country that has 265 different kinds of cheese.

The first duty of government is to protect the powerless from the powerful.

Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the government from running amuck by hamstringing it.

And that is my definition of democracy, the right to be in a minority and not be suppressed.