As a leader, one must sometimes take actions that are unpopular, or whose results will not be known for years to come.

The knowledge of higher leadership can only be acquired by the study of military history and actual experience. There are no hard and fast rules; everything depends on the plans of the general, the condition of the troops, the season of the year, and a thousand other circumstances, which have the effect that no one case will ever resemble another.

Why should I expect to be exempt from censure; the unfailing lot of an elevated station? My Heart tells me it has been my unremitted aim to do the best circumstances would permit; yet, I may have been very often mistaken in my judgment of the means.

The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.

I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.

France has more need of me than I have need of France.