Charles de Gaulle on war and peace

How can you be expected to govern a country that has 246 kinds of cheese?

How can one conceive of a one-party system in a country that has over 200 varieties of cheeses?

Nothing builds authority up like silence, splendor of the strong and shelter of the weak.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Letter to William Stephens Smith (13 November 1787). Manuscript at the Library of Congress.

• Liberty

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

Dwight D. Eisenhower1890–1969The Chance for Peace (1953)

• Guns

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

George S. Patton1885–1945