Georges Clemenceau

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

— Georges Clemenceau

It was I who gave the title "J'accuse" to Zola's letter.

— Georges Clemenceau

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 is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.

— Georges Clemenceau

Mr. Wilson bores me with his Fourteen Points; why, God Almighty has only Ten!

— Georges Clemenceau

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.

— Georges Clemenceau

Oh, to be seventy again!

— Georges Clemenceau

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

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

— Georges Clemenceau

All that I know I learned after I was thirty.

— Georges Clemenceau

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

— Georges Clemenceau

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

— Georges Clemenceau

There is no passion like that of a functionary for his function.

— Georges Clemenceau

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.

— Georges Clemenceau

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

— Georges Clemenceau

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

All that I know I learned after I was thirty.

— Georges Clemenceau

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

— Georges Clemenceau