Georges Clemenceau
24 quotes
Biography
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau was a French statesman who was prime minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and again from 1917 until 1920. A physician turned journalist, he played a central role in the politics of the Third Republic, particularly amid the end of the First World War.
"It was I who gave the title "J'accuse" to Zola's letter."
"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."
"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."
"War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory."
"Mr. Wilson bores me with his Fourteen Points; why, God Almighty has only Ten!"
"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."
"Il est plus facile de faire la guerre que la paix."
"Oh, to be seventy again!"
"La guerre! C’est une chose trop grave pour la confier à des militaires."
"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."
"All that I know I learned after I was thirty."
"Americans have no capacity for abstract thought, and make bad coffee."
"There is no passion like that of a functionary for his function."
"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."
"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."
"France had been bled white by the war. The generation that had dreamed since 1870 of a war of revenge had triumphed, but at a deadly cost in national life-strength. It was a haggard France that greeted the dawn of victory. Deep fear of Germany pervaded the French nation on the morrow of their dazzling success. It was this fear that had prompted Marshal Foch to demand the Rhine frontier for the safety of France against her far larger neighbour. But the British and American statesmen held that the absorption of German-populated districts in French territory was contrary to the Fourteen Points and to the principles of nationalism and self-determination upon which the Peace Treaty was to be based. They therefore withstood Foch and France. They gained Clemenceau by promising: first, a joint Anglo-American guarantee for the defence of France; secondly, a demilitarised zone; and thirdly, the total, lasting disarmament of Germany. Clemenceau accepted this in spite of Foch’s protests and his own instincts. The Treaty of Guarantee was signed accordingly by Wilson and Lloyd George and Clemenceau. The United States Senate refused to ratify the treaty. They repudiated President Wilson’s signature. And we, who had deferred so much to his opinions and wishes in all this business of peacemaking, were told without much ceremony that we ought to be better informed about the American Constitution."
"He had one illusion — France; and one disillusion — mankind, including Frenchmen."
"I was seated between Jesus Christ and Napoleon."
"I don't know whether war is an interlude during peace, or peace an interlude during war."
"I don't know whether war is an interlude during peace, or peace an interlude during war."
"All the great pleasures in life are silent."
"It is far easier to make war than peace."
"My home policy: I wage war my foreign policy: I wage war. All the time I wage war."
"War is much too important a matter to be left to the generals."