Charles de Gaulle

1890–1970 · French general, leader of Free France & President of the Fifth Republic

Charles de Gaulle was a French army officer and statesman who led the Free French forces against Nazi Germany and later founded the Fifth Republic, serving as President from 1959 to 1969. Before the war he was a military theorist whose 1932 book Le Fil de l’épée (The Edge of the Sword) laid out his thinking on leadership, character and command — including the meditation on silence that later drifted onto Leonardo da Vinci.

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1 quote we’ve traced

“Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence”

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