39 Georges Clemenceau Quotes

Georges Clemenceau quotes

1. It was I who gave the title 'J'accuse' to Zola's letter.

2. In the distance huge trees were still blazing, around us was a waste of ashes and of half-consumed boughs, and the falling rain seemed only to quicken the dying conflagration. In some of the great green boles were fearful gaping wounds through which the sap was oozing, while some tall trees still stretched to heaven their triumphant crown of foliage above a trunk all charred that would never sprout again. The Brazilians contemplate spectacles such as this with a wholly indifferent eye, and, indeed, even with satisfaction, for they see in the ruin only a promise of future harvests. To me the scene possessed only the horror of a slaughter-house.

3. Politique interieure, je fais la guerre; politique exterieure, je fais la guerre. Je fais toujours la guerre.

4. War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.

5. His poor marksmanship must be taken into account. We have just won the most terrible war in history, yet here is a Frenchman who misses his target 6 out of 7 times at point-blank range. Of course, this fellow must be punished for the careless use of a dangerous weapon and for poor marksmanship. I suggest that he be locked up for eight years, with intensive training in a shooting gallery.

6. Il est plus facile de faire la guerre que la paix.

7. Oh, to be seventy again!

8. La guerre! C'est une chose trop grave pour la confier a des militaires.

9. My son is 22 years old. If he had not become a Communist at 22, I would have disowned him. If he is still a Communist at 30, I will do it then.

10. America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.

11. The Germans may take Paris, but that will not prevent me from going on with the war. We will fight on the Loire, we will fight on the Garronne, we will fight even in the Pyrenees. And if at last we are driven off the Pyrenees, we will continue the war at sea.

12. Mr. Wilson bores me with his Fourteen Points; why, God Almighty has only Ten!

13. All that I know I learned after I was thirty.

14. Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

15. Americans have no capacity for abstract thought, and make bad coffee.

16. There is no passion like that of a functionary for his function.

17. America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilisation in between.

18. A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he's not a man of action. It is as if a tennis player before returning a ball stopped to think about his views of the physical and mental advantages of tennis. You must act as you breathe.

19. When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

20. A man's life is interesting primarily when he has failed - I well know. For it's a sign that he tried to surpass himself.

21. He had one illusion - France; and one disillusion - mankind, including Frenchmen.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

22. I was seated between Jesus Christ and Napoleon.

1. It is far easier to make war than peace.

2. On September 17, 1914, Erzberger, the well-known German statesman, an eminent member of the Catholic Party, wrote to the Minister of War, General von Falkenhayn, We must not worry about committing an offence against the rights of nations nor about violating the laws of humanity. Such feelings today are of secondary importance? A month later, on October 21, 1914, he wrote in Der Tag, If a way was found of entirely wiping out the whole of London it would be more humane to employ it than to allow the blood of A SINGLE GERMAN SOLDIER to be shed on the battlefield!

3. Monet's garden must be included with his works, because he combined the magic of an adaptation of nature with the work of a painter of light. An extension of the studio into the openair, with color tones lavishly spread out on all sides to exercise the eye with seductive vibrations, from which a feverishly aroused retina expects unquenchable joy.

4. My home policy: I wage war; my foreign policy: I wage war. All the time I wage war.

5. War is much too serious a matter to entrust to military men.

6. I don't know whether war is an interlude during peace, or peace an interlude during war.

7. It is easier to make war than to make peace.

8. There are only two perfectly useless things in this world. One is an appendix and the other is Poincaré.

9. What can a mere French minister do when associated with Lloyd George, who thinks he is Napoleon, and Woodrow Wilson, who thinks he is Jesus Christ?

10. War is too important a matter to be left to the military.

11. In order to act, you must be somewhat insane .A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

12. The best time of love, is when one goes up the stairs.

13. Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

14. A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he's not a man of action. You must act as you breathe.

15. Generals cannot be trusted with anything, not even with war.

16. A collective tyrant, spread over the length and breadth of the land, is no more acceptable than a single tyrant ensconced on his throne.

17. This time it will be a long one.