“I am not bad, thank you. But don’t worry, one of these days I shall certainly die.”

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.

It’s impossible in normal times to rally a nation that has 265 kinds of cheese.

Victory often goes to the army that makes the least mistakes, not the most brilliant plans.

He who laughs last didn’t get the joke.

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.

when you came you cried and everybody smiled with joy; when you go smile and let the world cry for you.

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.

But there is nothing in biology yet found that indicates the inevitability of death.

There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.

I’d hate to die twice. It’s so boring.

Napoleon Bonaparte, on finding a dog beside the body of his dead master, licking his face and howling, on a moonlit field after a battle. Napoleon was haunted by this scene until his own death.

Divorce was emotionally traumatic for me. It was the death of a dream. I was in fairytale land, and the reality of it wasn’t so. But I don’t really like talking about it anymore, because it feels like a thousand lifetimes ago, and also it makes me look desperate like I need it for attention.

People who are too fastidious towards the finite never reach actuality, but linger in abstraction, and their light dies away.