All Quotes

"What are we doing, then, if not proceeding, article by article, to restore Germany's power, which, by a truly miraculous exercise of will, after its complete collapse during the War, is about to be built up again in the retrograde peace, which is surrendering, stage by stage, everything that human justice had gained by our victory? After the restoration of Germany's moral prestige by a lie we have the upsetting of the financial reparations by the progressive series of mutilations of the Treaty down to the payment of the so-called debts to America!"

"I scan the horizon in vain for any sign of a recovery. Day by day the position grows more serious through our inertia, while the designs of German violence shrink from no ways or means or instrument."

"If Germany, still obsessed by her traditional militarism, persists in her Deutschland über Alles, well—let the die be cast. We shall take up the atrocious War again at the point where we left it off. We must have the courage to prepare for it, instead of frittering away our strength in lies that no one believes, from conference to conference."

"When I am told that a policy of concessions, more or less happily graduated, is going to regain for us the goodwill of our former enemies I can only be glad to hear it, for I desire nothing so much as a state of stable equilibrium in Europe. But I must be able to perceive some sign of a favourable response to the goodwill that I am asked to manifest. Judge then of my surprise when I discover that Germany goes on arming and France disarming. The position is that the most scientific preparations for war are being carried out on the other side of the frontier. With us frontiers lie open, armaments are insufficient, effectives are well below the numbers recognized as necessary, while on the other side a feverish life of reconstruction is developing and reorganizing, by the adaptation of fresh material, every department of their war equipment as well as their means of transport."

"“Germany is arming and France disarming”: that is the decisive feature of this moment of history when the two states of mind confront one another in such stark brutality that I defy any sane man to cast doubt on the evidence. Our people have come to this, that they seem to like enduring provocations. The history of the plebiscite violently rejecting the financial measures accepted by us in order to help Germany to discharge what may remain of her financial obligations seems a sufficient indication of the most furious hostility. Thus we see, in the relentless light of the facts, the German, in fighting mood and trim, and the heedless Frenchman, both applauding the orators who proclaim the violations of the Peace Treaty."

"To-day Germany is once more trying to construct, by methods of peace, a Germanic Empire that she failed to bring into being by means of war. That she could never do without eventualities that may change the destinies of a France exposed to every hostile enterprise. What will become of us in this welter of countries the development of whose strength in the future no man can foresee? There are nations that are beginning. There are nations that are coming to an end. Our consciousness of our own acts entails the fixing of responsibilities. France will be what the men of France deserve."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first."

"Almost every day of my life in Paris I saw Clemenceau’s statue in the Champs-Elysées. I paid little attention to it. But this evening, as I stood close to that of Foch, it haunted my vision, the dauntless fighter, standing upright on the stone base, his scarf flying in the wind, his features harsh and tragic. I imagined him, too merciless to himself to shed tears over the destruction of his victory, condemning the pygmies of 1940, with all the contempt of which he was so richly capable, to be tormented by the Furies in spirit and soul and even more in their blood. He had foreseen the coming of these wretches. At the close of his astonishing life the man who waged war, and who in waging it, won it, found pleasure in giving a last lesson to his only love, France: from his rock in the Vendée looking out over his ocean, he wrote a life of Demosthenes, to which he added this comment: "Demosthenes would have saved his country, if it had consented to be saved." He predicted that our country having been saved by him would be lost. He wished that another such as he might rise in his turn to lead and save her."

"DR JAMES DOBSON: George, you think you ought to lecture me on what a Christian is all about? You know, I think -I think I'll stand by the things I have said. Patrick Leahy has been in opposition to most of the things that I believe. He is the one that took the reference to God out of the oath."

"GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But Dr. Dobson, excuse me for a second. You use the word hate. You said that he's a "God's people hater." How do you back that up?"

"Before he was thirty he was the witness of the complete defeat and invasion of his country brought about by the infamy and ineptitude of the Imperial Government. These experiences governed his whole career. The object for which he lived was the restoration of his country and the reversal of the wrongs she had suffered. Patriotism became to him a passion. It took the place of religion and provided that idealism without which great characters cannot live. And so for more than forty years he strove by voice and pen to fortify his country for a renewal of the struggle with Germany, to cleanse it of corruption, to give it greater strength and a higher courage. Perhaps his outlook was too material. Perhaps he cared too much for his country's glory and too little for her real happiness. But it is not for us, with our sheltered history, to judge him."

"He almost ceased to believe in human virtue. That was the foundation of his attitude to such things as the League of Nations. They seemed to him too good to be true; what Napoleon called ideology. Often when I visited him he has begun the conversation by saying: "I like the League of Nations," and then, with an ironic challenge: "but I don't believe in it." But that did not prevent him from being very kind to me personally. He was called fierce and pitiless and he may have been so. When I saw him he was courtesy and consideration personified. He never made phrases. He said what he wanted to say in the plainest and most pointed language he could command—and sometimes it was very plain and pointed. He never talked for the sake of talking—only because he had got something to say. His oratory was not emotional. It was destructive, especially of falsity and pretence. His critical power was great. He used it to destroy mercilessly whatever he despised and he despised a good many things and people... What he saw, he saw clearly, without ambiguity or self-delusion."

"I saw him last at the end of May of 1929. He had aged a good deal but his mind was as clear as ever. He spoke sadly and with disillusionment. He professed that he no longer much cared to live, though he was very glad to have been alive. He spoke with uneasiness of the general situation in the world and especially in France. He seemed to think there was a decay of authority and—though he did not use the word—of ideals. He said: "The truth is that I am in one respect a very unfortunate man. I have seen my wishes fulfilled. I believed very much in democracy and representative Government and now that I see it in operation I am a little disappointed." One other striking phrase he employed. He said: "I have come to think that it is more difficult to make Peace than to make War—and requires more patience!""

"He was not a popular man. He had made too many enemies and his tongue was too sharp. But his fellow-countrymen deeply respected and admired him... For France owed much to Clemenceau. His love for her was the ruling principle of his life. To her he sacrificed ease and friendship and perhaps even happiness. He hated those whom he regarded as her enemies, whether at home or abroad, and he was merciless to them—a Tiger indeed. He grieved with her in defeat, he sought to discipline her in peace, he strengthened her in war and he led her to Victory."

"The truth is that Clemenceau embodied and expressed France. As much as any single human being, miraculously magnified, can ever be a nation, he was France."

"France had been bled white by the war. The generation that had dreamed since 1870 of a war of revenge had triumphed, but at a deadly cost in national life-strength. It was a haggard France that greeted the dawn of victory. Deep fear of Germany pervaded the French nation on the morrow of their dazzling success. It was this fear that had prompted Marshal Foch to demand the Rhine frontier for the safety of France against her far larger neighbour. But the British and American statesmen held that the absorption of German-populated districts in French territory was contrary to the Fourteen Points and to the principles of nationalism and self-determination upon which the Peace Treaty was to be based. They therefore withstood Foch and France. They gained Clemenceau by promising: first, a joint Anglo-American guarantee for the defence of France; secondly, a demilitarised zone; and thirdly, the total, lasting disarmament of Germany. Clemenceau accepted this in spite of Foch’s protests and his own instincts. The Treaty of Guarantee was signed accordingly by Wilson and Lloyd George and Clemenceau. The United States Senate refused to ratify the treaty. They repudiated President Wilson’s signature. And we, who had deferred so much to his opinions and wishes in all this business of peacemaking, were told without much ceremony that we ought to be better informed about the American Constitution."

"In the fear, anger, and disarray of the French people the rugged, dominating figure of Clemenceau, with his world-famed authority, and his special British and American contacts, was incontinently discarded. "Ingratitude towards their great men," writes Plutarch, "is the mark of strong peoples." It was imprudent of France to indulge this trait when she was so grievously weakened. There was little compensating strength to be found in the revival of the group intrigues and ceaseless changes of Governments and Ministers which were the characteristic of the Third Republic, however profitable they were to those engaged in them."

"He had one illusion — France; and one disillusion — mankind, including Frenchmen."

"I was seated between Jesus Christ and Napoleon."

"He was...much the most arresting and powerful personality in the arena of French politics during the Third Republic... Clemenceau was a master of words. No orator of his day had a more perfect command and choice of word and phrase. But he was pre-eminently a man of action... That he should have succeeded as War Minister is not a matter of surprise. He possessed restless energy, indomitable courage and a gift of infecting others with his own combativeness and confidence... A combination of energy, courage and common sense was needed at that hour, and he possessed these three attributes in an exceptional degree... Clemenceau was the greatest French statesman—if not the greatest Frenchman—of his day. He was in every fibre of his being a Frenchman. He had no real interest in humanity as a whole. His sole concern was for France. As long as France was humbled he cared not what other people were exalted. As long as France was victorious he did not worry in the least about the tribulations of any other country. To him France was all in all."

"Ἥπερ μεγίστη γίγνεται σωτηρία, ὅταν γυνὴ πρὸς ἄνδρα μὴ διχοστατῇ."

"His hatred of Germany had a concentrated ferocity which I had never seen before... I remember driving with him back to Paris...after he had handed...the German delegates the draft of the Peace Treaty. As we passed the ruins of the palace of St. Cloud, which had been burned by the Germans in 1871, he told me how he remembered seeing the blaze... That event seemed to have burned itself into his memory ... There is only one incident of 1871 of which he spoke to me with emotion, and that was of the poignant scene in the French Assembly when Jules Favre came straight from an interview with Bismarck to report to the deputies the nature of the terms demanded, and the ruthlessness with which the triumphant Chancellor had treated the supplication of the French delegates for some amelioration in the demands. Tears came into M. Clemenceau's eyes—for the first and only time in my intercourse with him—as he described how "the old man" (Favre), in attempting to describe the harshness of the conqueror, broke down in the tribune and wept. I then understood something of M. Clemenceau's hatred of the Germans. They had not only invaded France, defeated her armies, occupied her capital, humbled her pride, but in the hour of victory had treated her with an insolence which for fifty years had rankled in the heart of this fierce old patriot. When I met him at Carlsbad the sore was still stinging him into anger."

"[Woodrow] Wilson then diverged into his usual rhapsody about the superiority of right to might: he referred to those great French idealists—Lafayette and Rochambeau...and he ended an eloquent appeal to Clemenceau by quoting Napoleon's saying on his deathbed that “in the end right always triumphed over might.” Clemenceau ... said: “President Wilson has quoted Napoleon as having said that in the end might was beaten by right. He says that he uttered this sentiment on his deathbed. Had it been true it was rather late for him to have discovered it. But it was not true. President Wilson alluded in glowing language to those idealistic young Frenchmen who helped to liberate America. However exalted the ideals of Lafayette and Rochambeau, they would never have achieved them without force. Force brought the United States into being and force again prevented it from falling to pieces.” The President acknowledged the cogency of the reply."

"Clemenceau said to me, “I used to be an idealist, but the older I grow the more I am convinced that it is Force that counts.” I replied, “Then you have come to agree with Machiavelli?” But Clemenceau doesn't like having his conclusions sharpened, and he said nothing."

"Much talk about Clemenceau and Wilson. L[loyd] G[eorge] said, ‘Each lacks and fails to understand the other's best qualities. When Wilson talks idealism, Clemenceau wonders what he means, and, metaphorically speaking, touches his forehead, as much as to say, “A good man, but not quite all there!”’"

"Had a little talk with President Wilson... The President said that he had been reading an account of Clemenceau's philosophy of life, in which he remarked: “Life consists of the play of unrestrained natural forces” – in other words, the evolutionist's view of sociological development. President: If you take that view, I don't see how you can have any hope or incentive to action."

"Signing of Protocol and procés-verbal ratifying the Treaty [of Versailles]. It was interesting to see old Clemenceau going through the ceremony – the quick way in which he walked round the tables. L[loyd] G[eorge] said that after the signing of Protocol, which took place in a private room, Clemenceau had to shake hands with the German delegate. He said to [L]loyd G[eorge], “I spat on the place in order to commemorate it!”"

"Few men in France had made a more realistic appraisal of their country’s position in the post-war world, or were more anxious to secure its future, than its premier, Georges Clemenceau, known as ‘the Tiger’. The 78-year-old Clemenceau may have seemed a man of the past, and his square-tailed coats, shapeless hats, thick, buckled boots, and suede gloves (worn because of his eczema) accentuated this impression. To Clemenceau, the problem of the peace settlement was the problem of French security: how to protect France against another German aggression, something which all of France believed was possible. In his relentless search for the means to enhance French security, Clemenceau operated on the assumption that neither military defeat nor the fall of the Kaiser would permanently weaken Germany nor curb her continental ambitions. Germany would have to be disarmed, but this would hardly be sufficient for future safety. Even as he savoured the victory that was won at such high cost to France, Clemenceau understood how easily the peace could be lost. Stripped to its essentials, French security required the support of allies and military, territorial, and economic changes that would restrict Germany’s capacity to again invade France. Neither the Rhineland nor Belgium was to become a platform for future German attacks. Clemenceau intended, too, that the peace settlements would provide opportunities to redress the unequal balance of economic strength between the two neighbouring nations that the war had not altered. While Clemenceau did not rule out the future possibility of Franco-German economic co-operation, already canvassed in the summer of 1919, it was only a possibility and had to be on terms that would promote French industrial interests."

"A scratch is nothing but the back-cueing that you hear in your ear before you push it out to the crowd. All you have to know is mathematically how many times to scratch it and when to let it go -- when certain things will enhance the record you're listening to. For instance, if you're playing a record with drums -- horns would sound nice to enhance it so you get a record with horns and slip it in at certain times."

"Disco was brand new then and there were a few jocks that had monstrous sound systems but they wouldn't dare play this kind of music. They would never play a record where only two minutes of the song was all it was worth. They wouldn't buy those types of records. The type of mixing that was out then was blending from one record to the next or waiting for the record to go off and wait for the jock to put the needle back on."

"DR JAMES DOBSON: Well, there's been an awful lot of hate expressed in this election. And most of it has been aimed at those who hold to conservative Christian views. He is certainly not the only one to take a position like that. But I think that that is -that's where he's coming from. He has certainly opposed most of the things that conservative Christians stand for."

"GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apology?"

"Herc really slipped up. With the monostrous power he had he couldn't mix too well. He was playing little breaks but it would sound so sloppy. I noticed that the mixer he was using was a GLI 3800. It was a very popular mixer at that time. It's a scarcity today but it's still one of the best mixers GLI ever made. At the time he wasn't using no cueing. In other words, the hole was there for a headphone to go in but I remember he never had headphones over his ears. All of a sudden, Herc had headphones but I guess he was so used to dropping the needle down by eyesight and trying to mix it that from the audio part of it he couldn't get into it too well."

"A scratch is nothing but the back-cueing that you hear in your ear before you push it out to the crowd. All you have to know is mathematically how many times to scratch it and when to let it go — when certain things will enhance the record you're listening to. For instance, if you're playing a record with drums--horns would sound nice to enhance it so you get a record with horns and slip it in at certain times."

"So much of what we do is ephemeral and quickly forgotten, even by ourselves, so it's gratifying to have something you have done linger in people's memories."

"There’s a very basic human, non-verbal aspect to our need to make music and use it as part of our human expression. It doesn’t have to do with body movements, it doesn't have to do with articulation of a language, but with something spiritual."

"I hadn't heard of either disco or Meco. When I was asked to listen to Meco's now-famous recording, I was a little apprehensive, wondering how a pop record could be made from "The March from Star Wars" and what it would be like. I immediately liked what I heard and sensed that a genuine communication was taking place. Meco took things forward another step by bringing Star Wars to a vast audience who otherwise would not have heard it in its original symphonic setting. I am most grateful to Meco for all of this and I am delighted that 'disco' and 'Meco' are now household words."

"Leroy Anderson is an American original - direct, honest, personal, idiosyncratic, and free of pretension. His music is directed to, and reflective of, the American soul."

"Without John Williams, bikes don’t really fly, nor do brooms in Quidditch matches, nor do men in red capes. There is no Force, dinosaurs do not walk the Earth, we do not wonder, we do not weep, we do not believe."

"One single private soldier, and we would take good care that he was killed."

"Les avions sont des jouets intéressants mais n'ont aucune utilité militaire"

"One does simply what one can in order to apply what one knows."

"Mon centre cède, ma droite recule, situation excellente, j'attaque."

"What you did was the greatest thing accomplished by any private soldier of all of the armies of Europe."

"The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire."

"This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20 years."

"In tactics, action is the governing rule of war."