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

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.

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.

The evolution toward Communism is inevitable.

Nothing builds authority up like silence, splendor of the strong and shelter of the weak.

There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt.

You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.

One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day was; one cannot judge life until death.

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year.

To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

Boys will be boys. And even that wouldn’t matter if only we could prevent girls from being girls.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Small-minded people blame others. Average people blame themselves. The wise see all blame as foolishness.

There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.

I no longer listen to what people say, I just watch what they do. Behavior never lies.