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Who really said it

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence

Not Leonardo da Vinci — actually Charles de Gaulle Charles de Gaulle 1890–1970 · French general & President of the Fifth Republic
Disputed In copyright

De Gaulle wrote this in his 1931 essay “Du Prestige” in the ‘Revue Militaire Française,’ later collected in his book ‘Le Fil de l’épée’ (1932): “Rien ne rehausse l’autorité mieux que le silence.” The popular English “strengthens” wording is one of several loose translations of that line. There is no evidence Leonardo da Vinci — who died in 1519 — ever wrote it; the da Vinci credit first surfaced only in 2004.

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence” Charles de Gaulle, Le Fil de l'épée (1932) — "Rien ne rehausse l'autorité mieux que le silence." Often misattributed to Leonardo da Vinci.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Leonardo da Vinci. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Estate of Charles de Gaulle / French publisher (Berger-Levrault, later Plon); English translation © Gerard Hopkins / Faber & Faber (1960)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Charles de Gaulle — French general, leader of Free France & President of the Fifth Republic. Theme: "Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The real source

Author
Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970)
Work
“Du Prestige” (1931); collected in ‘Le Fil de l’épée’
First published
1931 (essay) · 1932 (book)
Translation
English ‘The Edge of the Sword,’ tr. Gerard Hopkins, 1960

Rien ne rehausse l’autorité mieux que le silence, splendeur des forts et refuge des faibles, pudeur des orgueilleux et fierté des humbles, prudence des sages et esprit des sots.

De Gaulle’s original French. Gerard Hopkins’s 1960 authorized translation renders the opening as “Nothing more enhances authority than silence” — the widely shared “strengthens authority so much as silence” is a looser, unattributed rendering of the same sentence.

Quote Investigator: origin traced to de Gaulle

How we verified this

In copyright

The line comes from de Gaulle’s ‘Le Fil de l’épée’ (first published 1931–1932), well after 1931, so both the French original and Gerard Hopkins’s 1960 English translation remain in copyright in the United States. The exact popular “strengthens” wording is an unattributed variant translation, but it derives directly from that copyrighted work, so no public-domain claim is safe.

Fact-check

How da Vinci got the credit

This is a genuine de Gaulle line that migrated onto Leonardo da Vinci — one of the internet’s biggest magnets for orphaned aphorisms — centuries after his death.

Charles de Gaulle true author

De Gaulle wrote “Rien ne rehausse l’autorité mieux que le silence” in his 1931 essay “Du Prestige,” collected in ‘Le Fil de l’épée’ (1932), per Quote Investigator ↗.

Leonardo da Vinci misattributed

Da Vinci died in 1519 and left no such line. Quote Investigator found the ascription surfacing only in 2004 ↗, then spreading through quote sites such as Goodreads ↗ and BrainyQuote.

The thought and the words are Charles de Gaulle’s, from ‘Le Fil de l’épée’ (1932); the English “Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence” is a loose translation, and the Leonardo da Vinci credit is a 21st-century error ↗.

Context

Why it fits de Gaulle

De Gaulle wrote ‘Le Fil de l’épée’ as a study of military leadership and the authority of command. The full sentence is a small prose-poem on silence — “splendour of the strong and refuge of the weak” — and reads as the credo of a man who would later cultivate an almost oracular reserve as a wartime leader and head of state.

Stripped of its French cadence and its author, the opening clause became a generic leadership maxim, easily reassigned to a more universally ‘quotable’ genius. Leonardo da Vinci — endlessly credited with feel-good aphorisms he never wrote — was the natural magnet.

“Nothing more enhances authority than silence” — the crowning virtue of the strong, in de Gaulle’s own book on command.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Power

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: Nothing Enhances Authority So Much as Silencequoteinvestigator.com

The definitive trace: origin in de Gaulle’s 1931 “Du Prestige,” the 1960 Hopkins translation, and the 2004 da Vinci error.
Wikiquote: Charles de Gaulleen.wikiquote.org

Carries the original French from ‘Le Fil de l’épée’ (1932) with its source.
Goodreads: the quote as (mis)credited to da Vincigoodreads.com

Example of the popular misattribution the fact-check corrects.
BrainyQuote: da Vinci attributionbrainyquote.com

Another high-traffic source spreading the da Vinci credit.
Le Fil de l’épée (The Edge of the Sword)archive.org

A full scan of de Gaulle’s book — French ‘Le Fil de l’épée’ (1932), English ‘The Edge of the Sword’ — the source of the line.

The author

About Charles de Gaulle

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.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Charles de Gaulle, “Du Prestige,” ‘Revue Militaire Française’ (1931); collected in ‘Le Fil de l’épée’ (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1932); English as ‘The Edge of the Sword,’ trans. Gerard Hopkins (London: Faber & Faber, 1960). Origin traced by Quote Investigator (22 Jan 2026).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/nothing-strengthens-authority-so-much-as-silence

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