François Mitterrand Quotes

How can you govern a country with two hundred thirty-eight varieties of cheese?

For me Greece is Maria Farantouri. This is how I imagined Goddess Hera to be: strong, pure and vigilant. I have never encountered any other artist able to give me such a strong sense of the divine.

En économie il y a deux solutions. Ou vous êtes léniniste. Ou vous ne changez rien.

There exists in our country a solid continuity of Bonapartism, where the vocation for grandeur of France, the monarchist tradition, and the passion for national unity, the Jacobin tradition get together.

To every reversal of people’s soveregnity, to every disappearance of the Republic corresponds a frank or disguised restitution in force of the regal justice. ‘’Tell me, according to what you judge and I’ll tell you who you are.” […] No axiom in politics is more certain than this.

What has begun in this evening will not stay for a long time, and because you represent the forces of the world of labour, you, forces of the youth, your victory is inevitable.

I would like to say, sincerity. But it is, in fact, indifference.

I believe in the forces of the spirit, and I won't leave you.

One must defeat their prejudices. What I demand you here is almost impossible, for we have to defeat our history. And yet, if we do not defeat it, one must know a rule will impose itself, ladies and gentlemen: nationalism is war! War is not only our past, it may be our future; and you members of parliament are henceforth the guardians of our peace, of our security, and of this future.

Behind each great man, there's a Richard Delisle.

A man loses contact with reality if he is not surrounded by his books.

In such countries, genocide is not too important…

Let's say I have a mystical soul and a rational brain, and, like Montaigne, I am incapable of choosing between them. I don't know if I believe in God, but I am often tempted to believe.

The man of the past.