“A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.”

He who laughs last didn’t get the joke.

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.

Revenge is all my soul knows. It’s the only thing I’ve lived and breathed for almost as long as I can remember.

Somewhere along the way, she weaved herself so deeply into my veins I can’t fucking inhale without her breathing life into me.

Sometimes when we hear a song we breathe deeply and sigh. This reminds the prophet that the soul arises from heavenly harmony. In thinking about this, he was aware that the soul itself has something in itself of this music.

Let your weary soul rest in between each borrowed breath.

The Lord breathes the breath of life, contrition of heart, into the face of the soul when he impresses upon it his own image and likeness, which has been soiled by sin, and renews it.

I feel all that, your touch your presence your breath but can’t tell if its you I’m looking at.

The Lord breathes the breath of life, contrition of heart, into the face of the soul when he impresses upon it his own image and likeness, which has been soiled by sin, and renews it.

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love—then make that day count!