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Bismarck went so far as to boast of a forgery. The Ems telegram was a crime of no less magnitude than the outrage on Belgium. The cynicism of the scrap of paper will be counted against Germany as long as human history lasts. That stain, like Lady Macbeth's, can never be effaced.

— Georges Clemenceau Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)

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More quotes by Georges Clemenceau

War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.

A man's life is interesting primarily when he has failed — I well know. For it's a sign that he tried to surpass himself.

To me the scene possessed only the horror of a slaughter-house.

It is easier to make war than make peace.

The quantum of a hypothetical German civilization would not take us very far, because she is to-day still too close to barbarism.

Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Georges Clemenceau (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.