Léon Gambetta Quotes

A man's first duty is to fight for his country.

Tenacity is one of the characteristics of your race. It is for that reason that our dear Alsace was especially necessary to French unity; it represented that unquenchable energy which exists among us, side by side with a fickleness and levity which at times, unfortunately, mar our national character. Until Alsace comes back into the family circle there will be no France and no Europe. Let us not speak of revenge, let us utter no rash word, let us think over the matter calmly and soberly. For my part, I have no other ambition than faithfully to observe the mandate you have given me, a mandate that I look upon as my greatest honour, the ruling principle of my life.

Paris, the cradle of our civilisation, the buckler of our public liberties, the teacher and guide of the national genius, Paris that may be made a mark for the imbecile hatred of a few rustic boors, but can never be downtrodden nor dishonoured.

Never let us deny the poverty and suffering of a section of the democracy. But let us also beware of the Utopias of those who believe that a panacea or a formula can make the world happy. There is no social remedy, because there is not one social question, but a whole series of problems to be solved and difficulties are to be overcome. These problems must be solved one by one and not by means of any single formula. There is no panacea.

If, amid our misfortunes, the Republican form of government has appeared the only one possible, it is because no other was in a position to confront the danger. At the time of the catastrophe there was no thought of any other Government. Where were the claimants to the throne?

I want to make it a platform from which we shall demand each day before Europe our rights and our ravished provinces. France is at the mercy of Germany. We are in a state of latent war; neither peace nor freedom nor progress is any longer possible in Europe.

What we have lacked is what people who have allowed themselves to be enslaved for too long always lack: faith in themselves and a proper hatred of the foreigner. Let us never speak of the foreigner, but let it be clear that we always think of him. Thus you will be on the road to revenge.

I have never been a very keen supporter of the ideas and principles of cosmopolitanism. There is about them something that is too vague, too idealistic, despite the appearance of a certain brilliance and speciousness. I believe that their most assured result is to efface, or reduce too greatly, the love of one's country and one's sense of civic responsibility. In the present situation of our country, what matters, on the contrary, is that our hearts attach themselves more than ever to the principles dictated by a devotion to the national cause, and that they find their inspiration in the French idea. I love my country too much to sacrifice any part whatever of its prosperity or strength to a system, however generous it may be, or appear to be.

I would have him able, not only to think, read and reason, but also to act and fight. Everywhere we must have, side by side with the schoolmaster, the athlete and the military instructor. [These two forms of education] must be carried on side by side. Otherwise your schools will turn out literary men, but never patriots. The whole world should be made to understand that when a French citizen is born, he is born a soldier.

There will be no peace and no order until all classes of society shall have been given a share in the benefits of civilisation and science, and can regard their Government as the legitimate offspring of their own sovereign power, rather than as an exacting and greedy master. Until that day, if we pursue our present fatal path, you will drive the ignorant to support coups d'état at one moment, and swell the forces of street rioters at the next, and we shall be left exposed to the pitiless fury of irresponsible mobs...trying to avenge themselves by looting among the ruins.

I have never been a subscriber to this vague and deceptive theory of a Republican United States of Europe...after the hard and severe lessons given us by recent events I absolutely reject this theory as fatal for the regeneration of France, false as a matter of general history, and dangerous for democracy and the freedom of the world.

At this moment I have only one preoccupation: after our fruitless efforts to drive out the foreigner to try to save at least our Republican institutions.

On this day, seventy-eight years ago, our fathers founded the Republic, and—while the foreign invader was profaning the sacred soil of their country—vowed to live free or to die fighting. They kept their vow; they defeated the foreigner; and the Republic of 1792 lives in the memory of men as the symbol of heroism and national greatness... May the spirit of power that inspired our forefathers breathe into our own souls, and we, too, shall conquer!

I am sorry to see that our Republican traditions are being weakened and effaced by the influence of humanitarian doctrines. We who are Republicans should no more than other Frenchmen be patient in tolerating the claim of a military and reactionary power to impose its will and preponderance upon our country and upon the rest of Europe. Danton did not refuse his aid.

France is bound under the pain of humiliation and perhaps of social death to complete the French Revolution. It is the task of the nineteenth century; it is particularly the task of our generation. The centenary of 1789 must not dawn upon us without the reconquest by the people for itself and for the rest of the world of the political heritage of which it has been dispossessed since the 18th Brumaire.