Charles de Gaulle Quotes

A weak point of mine was maybe little resolve in governing and making decisions.

When it comes to making tough decisions, I'm ready to make them.

I am very clear with people that I am willing and able to make tough choices, and I will do that.

To rule is easy, to govern difficult.

It's so much easier to throw rocks than it is to govern.

He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides, or he is quite unworthy of it.

Decisiveness is the best way to get things done.

It's one thing to make the speeches. It's another to make the tough decisions.

Politicians are strong to the extent that they are ready to take serious decisions and fight for it.

We've got to stop pandering and start leading.

I need to be the leader day in and day out - and I will be.

When placed in command, take charge.

For good or ill, I'm a person of leadership. I do my best. I don't dodge responsibility.

In politics, guts is all.

At Athens, wise men propose, and fools dispose.

I think it is important for people who are given leadership roles to assume that role immediately.

Any commander who fails to exceed his authority is not of much use to his subordinates.

We will not duck the tough issues, we will lead.

I wanted the influence. In the end I wasn't very good at being a president. I looked out of the window and thought that the man cutting the lawn actually seemed to have more control over what he was doing.

The Prime Minister is head of team but its not a one woman act. I've been called all those things. Intellectual, sharp-tongued, all true. But what New Zealander is like is to know that someone is in charge and in the end the buck stops with the Prime Minister.

Certainly I shall not be one of those who, having gained power, do not wish to use it.

[President] McKinley gave [Lt. Andrew Sommers] Rowan a letter to be delivered to [General Calixto] Garcia: Rowan took the letter and did not ask, "Where is he at?" By the eternal, there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college in the land. It is not book learning that young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust to act promptly, concentrate their energies, do the thing—"carry a message to Garcia.

[In politics:] He who dallies is a dastard; he who doubts is damned.

To govern is to chose.

For the first ten years or so, you would always question whether the decisions were right or wrong, but you have to learn to put things behind you once a decision is made. You can't be wishy-washy about it