Georges Clemenceau citations célèbres
Discours
Georges Clemenceau au sujet de Cornélius Herz
Discours au Sénat, 22 juillet 1917.
Discours
Georges Clemenceau au sujet de Cornélius Herz
Citations de la guerre de Georges Clemenceau
Georges Clemenceau: Citations en anglais
Conversation with Jean Martet (1 June 1928), Ch. 30
Clemenceau, The Events of His Life (1930)
Referring to his rival Raymond Poincaré, as quoted in Paris 1919 : Six Months That Changed the World (2003) by Margaret MacMillan, p. 33
Conversation with Jean Martet (18 December 1927), Ch. 11, p. 167.
Clemenceau, The Events of His Life (1930)
Contexte: 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.
“War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.”
Statement to Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference (12 January 1919), as quoted in The Macmillan Dictionary of Political Quotations (1993) by Lewis D. Eigen and Jonathan Paul Siegel, p. 689
Prime Minister
“Mr. Wilson bores me with his Fourteen Points; why, God Almighty has only Ten!”
As quoted in The Hero in America: A Chronicle of Hero-worship (1941) by Dixon Wecter, p. 402
As quoted in Clemenceau and the Third Republic (1946) by John Hampden Jackson
Original French, as quoted in The End of an Age, and Other Essays (1948) by William Ralph Inge, p. 139: Quatorze? Le bon Dieu n'a que dix.
Prime Minister
Variante: Fourteen? The good Lord had only ten.
“All that I know I learned after I was thirty.”
As quoted in And Madly Teach : A Layman Looks at Public School Education (1949) by Mortimer Brewster Smith, p. 27
Post-Prime Ministerial
“To me the scene possessed only the horror of a slaughter-house.”
South America To-Day : A Study of Conditions, Social, Political, and Commercial in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil (1911) http://www.archive.org/details/southamericatoda011092mbp Ch. 14, Brazilian Coffee, p. 395
Contexte: In the distance huge trees were still blazing, around us was a waste of ashes and of half-consumed boughs, and the falling rain seemed only to quicken the dying conflagration. In some of the great green boles were fearful gaping wounds through which the sap was oozing, while some tall trees still stretched to heaven their triumphant crown of foliage above a trunk all charred that would never sprout again. The Brazilians contemplate spectacles such as this with a wholly indifferent eye, and, indeed, even with satisfaction, for they see in the ruin only a promise of future harvests. To me the scene possessed only the horror of a slaughter-house.
Speech at the Paris Peace Conference (27 March 1919), quoted in Anthony Adamthwaite, Grandeur and Misery: France's Bid for Power in Europe 1914-1940 (London: Arnold, 1995), p. 40.
Contexte: After expending the greatest effort, and suffering the greatest sacrifices in blood in all history, we must not compromise the results of our victory... if the League of Nations cannot buttress its orders with military sanctions we must find this sanction elsewhere... I beg you to understand my state of mind, just as I am trying to understand yours. America is far away and protected by the ocean, England could not be reached by Napoleon himself. You are sheltered, both of you; we are not.
South America To-Day : A Study of Conditions, Social, Political, and Commercial in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil (1911) http://www.archive.org/details/southamericatoda011092mbp Ch. 14, Brazilian Coffee, p. 395
Contexte: In the distance huge trees were still blazing, around us was a waste of ashes and of half-consumed boughs, and the falling rain seemed only to quicken the dying conflagration. In some of the great green boles were fearful gaping wounds through which the sap was oozing, while some tall trees still stretched to heaven their triumphant crown of foliage above a trunk all charred that would never sprout again. The Brazilians contemplate spectacles such as this with a wholly indifferent eye, and, indeed, even with satisfaction, for they see in the ruin only a promise of future harvests. To me the scene possessed only the horror of a slaughter-house.
“My home policy: I wage war. My foreign policy: I wage war. All the time I wage war.”
Politique intérieure, je fais la guerre; politique extérieure, je fais la guerre. Je fais toujours la guerre.
"Discours de Guerre" [Speech on War] Chambre des Députés, Assemblée Nationale, Paris (8 March 1918)
On being told his son had joined the Communist Party, as quoted in Try and Stop Me (1944) by Bennet Cerf
A statement similar in theme has also been attributed to Clemenceau:
A young man who isn't a socialist hasn't got a heart; an old man who is a socialist hasn't got a head.
As quoted in "Nice Guys Finish Seventh" : False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations (1992) by Ralph Keyes.
W. Gurney Benham in A Book of Quotations (1948) cites a statement by François Guizot as the earliest known expression of this general idea, stating that Clemenceau merely adapted the saying substituting socialiste for republicain:
N'être pas républicain à vingt ans est preuve d'un manque de cœur ; l'être après trente ans est preuve d'un manque de tête.
Not to be a republican at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head.
Variations on this general idea have also been attributed or misattributed to many others, most commonly Winston Churchill, who is not known to have actually made any similar statement.
Post-Prime Ministerial
“War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.”
La guerre! C’est une chose trop grave pour la confier à des militaires.
Variant translation: War is too important a matter to be left to the military.
As quoted in Soixante Anneés d'Histoire Française (1932) by Georges Suarez
War is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers.
As quoted in Clemenceau and the Third Republic (1946) by John Hampden Jackson, p. 228; this has also become commonly paraphrased as: War is too important to be left to the generals.
Post-Prime Ministerial
Conversation with Jean Martet (1 January 1928), Ch. 12
Clemenceau, The Events of His Life (1930)
Arguing against seeking the death penalty for the anarchist who had attempted to assassinate him on 19 February 1919, shooting at him seven times and hitting him only once in the chest, as quoted in A Time for Angels : The Tragicomic History of the League of Nations (1975) by Elmer Bendine, p. 106
Prime Minister
vassalité
Speech to the Senate (10 February 1912), quoted in David Robin Watson, Georges Clemenceau: A Political Biography (London: Eyre Methuen, 1974), p. 220.
Quoted in a letter from the British Ambassador Lord Derby to Lord Balfour (14 December 1918), quoted in David Robin Watson, Georges Clemenceau: A Political Biography (London: Eyre Methuen, 1974), p. 337.
Prime Minister
“There is no passion like that of a functionary for his function.”
As quoted in The Wordsworth Dictionary of Quotations (1998) by Connie Robertson, p. 86
Post-Prime Ministerial
“It is easier to make war than make peace.”
Il est plus facile de faire la guerre que la paix.
"Discours de Paix" [Speech on Peace] Verdun (20 July 1919)
Prime Minister
“Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.”
As quoted in The Unlawful Concert : An Account of the Presidio Mutiny Case (1970) by Fred Gardner.
Unsourced French: Il suffit d'ajouter "militaire" à un mot pour lui faire perdre sa signification. Ainsi la justice militaire n'est pas la justice, la musique militaire n'est pas la musique.
It suffices to add "military" to a word for it to lose its meaning. Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
Speech at the Paris Peace Conference (June 1919), quoted in David Robin Watson, Georges Clemenceau: A Political Biography (London: Eyre Methuen, 1974), p. 352.
Prime Minister
Letter to Georges Louis (28 July 1908), quoted in David Robin Watson, Georges Clemenceau: A Political Biography (London: Eyre Methuen, 1974), p. 221.
“It was I who gave the title "J'accuse" to Zola's letter.”
Letter (19 June 1902), in which he claims to have chosen the headline title for Émile Zola's famous open letter on the Dreyfus affair, as quoted in Clemenceau (1974) by D. R. Watson, and Brewer's Famous Quotations : 5000 Quotations and the Stories Behind Them (2006) by Nigel Rees
“Americans have no capacity for abstract thought, and make bad coffee.”
As quoted in The Europeans (1984) by Luigi Barzini, p. 225
Post-Prime Ministerial
Quoted in Frances Stevenson's diary entry (12 December 1919), A. J. P. Taylor (ed.), Lloyd George: A Diary (London: Hutchinson, 1971), p. 192.
Prime Minister
Actually said by Charles de Gaulle, on leaving his presidency, Life, May 9, 1969.
Misattributed
Attributed to Clemenceau by Hans Bendix, in "Merry Christmas, America!" The Saturday Review of Literature (1 December 1945), p. 9; this appears to be the earliest reference to such a remark as one by Clemenceau, though earlier, in Frank Lloyd Wright : An Autobiography (1943) there is mention that "A witty Frenchman has said of us: 'The United States of America is the only nation to plunge from barbarism to degeneracy with no culture in between.'" Similar remarks are sometimes attributed without a source to Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw.
Variants:
America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to decadence without the usual interval of civilization.
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilisation in between.
Post-Prime Ministerial
Remarks to Poincaré in Cabinet (25 April 1919), quoted in David Robin Watson, Georges Clemenceau: A Political Biography (London: Eyre Methuen, 1974), p. 352.
Prime Minister
As quoted in Clemenceau and the Third Republic (1946) by John Hampden Jackson.
Prime Minister
Remarks to Woodrow Wilson (28 March 1919), quoted in Anthony Adamthwaite, Grandeur and Misery: France's Bid for Power in Europe 1914-1940 (London: Arnold, 1995), p. 49.
Prime Minister
Letter to Georg Brandes (9 January 1906), quoted in David Robin Watson, Georges Clemenceau: A Political Biography (London: Eyre Methuen, 1974), pp. 220-221.
