Georges Clemenceau Quotes

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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.

Georges Clemenceau

Heart, Twenties, Vote

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

Georges Clemenceau

Funny, Civilization, America

Attributed in Saturday Review of Literature, 1 Dec. 1945

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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?

Georges Clemenceau

Jesus, Thinking, Government

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

Georges Clemenceau

Order, Discipline, Liberty

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

Georges Clemenceau

Teaching, Learning, Men

"Clemenceau. The Events Of His Life As Told By Himself To His Former Secretary Jean Martet". Translated by Milton Waldman, Chapter 12, 1930.

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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.

Georges Clemenceau

War, Fighting, Sea

Quoted in J. Hampden Jackson, Clemenceau and the Third Republic (1946)

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

Georges Clemenceau

Behind My Back, Ass, Said

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

Georges Clemenceau

Coffee, Abstract, Capacity

"The Europeans". Book by Luigi Barzini, p. 225, 1984.

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

Georges Clemenceau

War, Home, Foreign Policy

Speech to French Chamber of Deputies, 8 Mar. 1918

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Oh, to be seventy again!

Georges Clemenceau

Funny, Birthday, Humor

"Ego 3". Book by James Agate, 1938.

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War is too serious to be entrusted to generals

Georges Clemenceau

War, Serious

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

Georges Clemenceau

War, Winner, Disaster

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

Georges Clemenceau

Useless Things, Two, World

"Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World". Book by Margaret MacMillan, p. 33, 2003.

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

Georges Clemenceau

Peace, Military, War

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All that I know I learned after I was thirty.

Georges Clemenceau

Birthday, Keys, Experience

"And Madly Teach : A Layman Looks at Public School Education". Book by Mortimer Brewster Smith, 1949.

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

Georges Clemenceau

Life, Men, Action

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

Georges Clemenceau

Love Is, Stairs, Best Times

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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!"

Georges Clemenceau

War, Party, Rights

"Grandeur and Misery of Victory". Book by Georges Clemenceau, trans. F. M. Atkinson, p. 279 (quoting Matthias Erzberger), 1930.

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All the great pleasures of life are silent.

Georges Clemenceau

Life, Silence, Silent

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

Georges Clemenceau

War, Easier, Plus

Speech at Verdun, 20 July 1919, in 'Discours de Paix' (1938) p. 122

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

Georges Clemenceau

Heart, Twenties, Want

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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.

Georges Clemenceau

Son, Years, Communist

Attributed in Bennett Cerf, Try and Stop Me (1944)

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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.

Georges Clemenceau

Inspirational, Life, Fear

"Clemenceau, The Events of His Life as Told by Himself to His Former Secretary, Jean Martet". Book by Georges Clemenceau, 1930.

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

Georges Clemenceau

Land, Tyrants, Thrones

"Antisemitism: Part One of The Origins of Totalitarianism". Book by Hannah Arendt, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, p. 127, 2012.

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

Georges Clemenceau

War, Trusted

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Born: September 28, 1841
Died: November 24, 1929
Occupation: French Statesman
Cite this Page: Citation

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