“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.”

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.

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

Not where are you from, but where are you going?

Dream about what you will become and forget about failures past. You don’t need a mantra, a false icon. Be improving always, until the very last.

As a woman, it’s challenging to carve out moments for self-care, and even more so over the past year.

I feel I am stuck in memories of ours there is no past or the future but a series of moments halted without a given command. And time has stopped making sense.

I wish I could go back in time, not to do it all over again but just to be there for myself.

The fading blue of yesterdays sky is reminding me of the hopeless love I told the moon about you.

How simple tomorrow seems when there is nothing worth remembering (about yesterday).

Learn from the past. Live in the present. Prepare for the future.