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

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.

The power to command frequently causes failure to think.

Nature has not got two voices, you know, one of them condemning all day what the other commands.

The only thing I command is respect.

This not in mortals to command success, but we’ll do more, Sempronius, we’ll deserve it.

I have one criticism about the Negro troops who fought under my command in the Korean War. They didn’t send me enough of them.

A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.

You start chasing a ball and your brain immediately commands your body to ‘Run forward, bend, scoop up the ball, peg it to the infield,’ then your body says, ‘Who me?’

As my great friend Aristotle said, ‘If you cannot command, you must learn to listen.’ I’m not the hierarchy here. I am a worker bee.