Charles de Gaulle — "The only valid ambition is to be an exception."
The only valid ambition is to be an exception.
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More from Charles de Gaulle
"The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things."
"I am too old to change my habits, and too French to change my character."
"When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. We are angry at each other much of the time."
"The only way to rise is to look down on others."
"Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so."
About Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970)
French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces from London during WWII and founded France's Fifth Republic in 1958. Closely associated with Winston Churchill (wartime British ally and rival) and Konrad Adenauer (postwar German Chancellor and reconciliation partner). For an intellectual contrast, see Philippe Pétain, Marshal of France and Vichy collaborationist head of state — Pétain's June 1940 armistice with Nazi Germany was the surrender de Gaulle's London BBC broadcasts publicly rejected — postwar French identity is structured around which one was right, the surrender path or the resistance.