The true statesman is the one who is willing to take risks.

I always thought I was Jeanne d'Arc and Bonaparte. How little one knows oneself.

How can one conceive of a one-party system in a country that has over two hundred varieties of cheese?

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.

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

A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.