Old age is a shipwreck.

You start out giving your hat, then you give your coat, then your shirt, then your skin and finally your soul.

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

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

When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself.

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

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses; they last while they last.

The sword is the axis of the world and its power is absolute.

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

No nation has friends only interests.

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

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.

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

Only peril can bring the French together. One can't impose unity out of the blue on a country that has 265 different kinds of cheese.

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