Top 38 Quotes & Sayings by Georges Clemenceau

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

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

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

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

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

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.

All that I know I learned after I was thirty.

It is far easier to make war than peace.

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

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.

Begin to free yourself at once by doing all that is possible with the means you have, and as you proceed in this spirit the way will open for you to do more.

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

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.

War is too serious to be entrusted to generals

It is easier to make war than to make peace.

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.

Liberty is the right to discipline ourselves in order not to be disciplined by others

A man who has to be convinced to act before he acts is not a man of action. You must act as you breathe.

Oh, to be seventy again!

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

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

All the great pleasures of life are silent.

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.

War is a series of disasters which result in a winner.

What is said behind my back is said to my ass.

Il est plus facile de faire la guerre que la paix. It is far easier to make war than to make peace.

One begins to realize that art... in setting out to express nature with ever growing accuracy, teaches us to look, to perceive, to feel. The stone itself becomes an organic substance, and one can feel it being transformed as one moment in its life succeeds another.

This time it will be a long one.

Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head.

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

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

If you don't vote Socialist/Communist before you are twenty, you have no heart - if you do vote Socialist/Communist after you are twenty, you have no head.

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.

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

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!"

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?

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves he isn't a man of action.

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