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

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

It is better to have a bad method than to have none.

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

France has no friends, only interests.

Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.

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.

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

Character is the virtue of hard times.

Adversity attracts the man of character. He seeks out the bitter joy of responsibility.

You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.

Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.

One can unite the French only under the threat of danger. One cannot simply bring together a nation that produces 265 kinds of cheese.

In the tumult of great events, solitude was what I hoped for. Now it is what I love. How is it possible to be contented with anything else when one has come face to face with history?

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.

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

The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.

The purpose of life is to obey the hidden command which ensures harmony among all and creates an ever better world.

Once the command of the air is obtained by one of the contending armies, the war becomes a conflict between a seeing host and one that is blind.

He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.

Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions.

Seduction is always more singular and sublime than sex and it commands the higher price.

Since God had commanded it, it was necessary that I do it. Since God commanded it, even if I had a hundred fathers and mothers, even if I had been a King’s daughter,

I did not take this dress or do anything but by the command of Our Lord and of the Angels.

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.