Top 100 Charles de Gaulle Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Genius sometimes consists of knowing when to stop.”

— Charles de Gaulle

Featured in: Genius Quotes

2. “Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.”

— Charles de Gaulle

3. “Always choose the hardest way, on it you will not find opponents.”

— Charles de Gaulle

4. “Belgium is a country invented by the British to annoy the French.”

— Charles de Gaulle

5. “The graveyards are full of indispensable men.”

— Charles de Gaulle

6. “Character is the virtue of hard times.”

— Charles de Gaulle

7. “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”

— Charles de Gaulle

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

— Charles de Gaulle

9. “Don’t think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. The cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.”

— Charles de Gaulle

10. “Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the fate of the world.”

— Charles de Gaulle

11. “Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.”

— Charles de Gaulle

12. “Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.”

— Charles de Gaulle

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

— Charles de Gaulle

14. “A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.”

— Charles de Gaulle

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

— Charles de Gaulle

16. “Don’t ask me who’s influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he’s digested, and I’ve been reading all my life.”

— Charles de Gaulle

Featured in: Reading Quotes

17. “China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.”

— Charles de Gaulle

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

— Charles de Gaulle

19. “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?”

— Charles de Gaulle

20. “The leader must aim high, see big, judge widely, thus setting himself apart form the ordinary people who debate in narrow confines.”

— Charles de Gaulle

21. “He who laughs last didn’t get the joke.”

— Charles de Gaulle

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

— Charles de Gaulle

23. “France has lost the battle but she has not lost the war.”

— Charles de Gaulle

24. “Politics, when it is an art and a service, not an exploitation, is about acting for an ideal through realities.”

— Charles de Gaulle

25. “It will not be any European statesman who will unite Europe: Europe will be united by the Chinese.”

— Charles de Gaulle

26. “I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”

— Charles de Gaulle

27. “For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her.”

— Charles de Gaulle

28. “Only by coming to grips with difficulty can you realize your full potential.”

— Charles de Gaulle

29. “I wouldn’t mind dying for France, but not for Air France.”

— Charles de Gaulle

30. “One does not arrest Voltaire.”

— Charles de Gaulle

31. “What do you take me for, an idiot?”

— Charles de Gaulle

32. “Always choose the most difficult way, there you will not meet competitors.”

— Charles de Gaulle

33. “There can be no other criterion, no other standard than gold. Yes, gold which never changes, which can be shaped into ingots, bars, coins, which has no nationality and which is eternally and universally accepted as the unalterable fiduciary value par excellence.”

— Charles de Gaulle

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

— Charles de Gaulle

35. “France has no friends, only interests.”

— Charles de Gaulle

36. “I am a man who belongs to no-one and who belongs to everyone.”

— Charles de Gaulle

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

— Charles de Gaulle

38. “No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.”

— Charles de Gaulle

39. “I respect only those who resist me, but I cannot tolerate them.”

— Charles de Gaulle

40. “At the root of our civilization, there is the freedom of each person of thought, of belief, of opinion, of work, of leisure.”

— Charles de Gaulle

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

— Charles de Gaulle

42. “Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.”

— Charles de Gaulle

43. “Les chercheurs qui cherchent, on en trouve. Les chercheurs qui trouvent, on en cherche.”

— Charles de Gaulle

44. “Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.”

— Charles de Gaulle

45. “When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. We are angry at each other much of the time.”

— Charles de Gaulle

46. “Long live free Quebec!”

— Charles de Gaulle

47. “All my life I have had a certain idea of France.”

— Charles de Gaulle

48. “The leader is always alone before bad fates.”

— Charles de Gaulle

49. “Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back upon himself.”

— Charles de Gaulle

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

— Charles de Gaulle