JEAN MONNET

We need to offer great examples to our youth.

Have I said clearly enough that the Community we created is not an end in itself? It is a process of change, continuing in that same process which in an earlier period produced our national forms of life. The sovereign nations of the past can no longer solve the problems of the present: they cannot ensure their own progress or control their own future. And the Community itself is only a stage on the way of the organized world of tomorrow.

Europe has never existed. One must genuinely create Europe.

There is no real peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on a basis of national sovereignty. (…) They must have larger markets. Their prosperity is impossible, unless the States of Europe form themselves in a European Federation.

Everybody is ambitious. The question is whether he is ambitious to be or ambitious to do.

Nothing is possible without men, but nothing lasts without institutions.

[Referring to political leaders:] Since they take the risks, they need the laurels.

For the politician the goal is always to be in the government.... Everything is about the struggle for office. The purpose of power, the problem to solve, is forgotten.

The world is divided into those who want to become someone and those who want to accomplish something.

Nothing important is done in the United States without lawyers.

Men only act in a state of necessity and usually only recognise necessity in a situation of crisis.

The countries of Europe are too small to guarantee their peoples the necessary prosperity and social development. The European states must constitute themselves into a federation.

Nothing is possible without men, but nothing lasts without institutions.

To rewrite history on the bases of hypotheses which have not materialized is not only a fruitless task, but, in my eyes, meaningless.

Everybody is ambitious. The question is whether he is ambitious to be or ambitious to do.

Nothing important is done in the United States without lawyers.

[Referring to political leaders:] Since they take the risks, they need the laurels.

For the politician the goal is always to be in the government.... Everything is about the struggle for office. The purpose of power, the problem to solve, is forgotten.

The world is divided into those who want to become someone and those who want to accomplish something.

Arsenal of Democracy

Men only act in a state of necessity and usually only recognise necessity in a situation of crisis.

Europe has never existed. One must genuinely create Europe.

There is no real peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on a basis of national sovereignty. (…) They must have larger markets. Their prosperity is impossible, unless the States of Europe form themselves in a European Federation.

Premature ideas do not exist, one must bide one's time until the right moment comes along.

Make men work together, show them that beyond their differences and geographical boundaries there lies a common interest.

Have I said clearly enough that the Community we created is not an end in itself? It is a process of change, continuing in that same process which in an earlier period produced our national forms of life. The sovereign nations of the past can no longer solve the problems of the present: they cannot ensure their own progress or control their own future. And the Community itself is only a stage on the way of the organized world of tomorrow.

There will be no peace in Europe if the States rebuild themselves on the basis of national sovereignty, with its implications of prestige politics and economic protection... The countries of Europe are not strong enough individually to be able to guarantee prosperity and social development for their peoples. The States of Europe must therefore form a federation or a European entity that would make them into a common economic unit.

People only accept change when they are faced with necessity, and only recognize necessity when a crisis is upon them.

There is no future for the people of Europe other than in union.