“It is a nation of contradictions, sir. Consider this: Ireland is an island nation that has never developed a navy; a music-loving people who have produced only those harmless lilting ditties as their musical legacy; a bellicose people who have never known the sweet savor of victory in a single war; a Catholic country that has never produced a single doctor of the Church; a magnificently beautiful country, a country to inspire artists, but a country not yet immortalized in art; a philosophic people yet to produce a single philosopher of note; a sensual people who have never mastered the art of preparing food.”

p 274. Said by character Colonel Edward T. Reynolds.
The Lords of Discipline (1980)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It is a nation of contradictions, sir. Consider this: Ireland is an island nation that has never developed a navy; a mu…" by Pat Conroy?
Pat Conroy photo
Pat Conroy 85
American novelist 1945–2016

Related quotes

Bob Newhart photo
Giuseppe Mazzini photo
Idi Amin photo

“In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order.”

Idi Amin (1925–2003) third president of Uganda

Quoted in Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations, 1982, Jonathon Green.
Attributed

E.E. Cummings photo
Donald J. Trump photo
William Cobbett photo

“A man of all countries is a man of no country: and let all those citizens of the world remember, that he who has been a bad subject in his own country...will never be either trusted or respected.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

‘Observations on Priestley's Emigration’ (August 1794), Porcupine's Works; containing various writings and selections, exhibiting a faithful picture of the United States of America, Volume I (1801), p. 169
1790s

Donald J. Trump photo
Neil Kinnock photo

“What has happened is that there are people who, for reasons best known to themselves, have voted for maintaining division in our country.”

Neil Kinnock (1942) British politician

Source: Remarks following the Labour defeat at the 1987 general election (12 June 1987); reported in David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh, "The British General Election of 1987" (Macmillan, 1987), p. 103.

Margaret Thatcher photo

“I do not believe that people who go on strike in this country have a legitimate cause. Throughout the period of the Labour Government and this one, I have never supported any strikes in this country.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Prime Minister's Questions (22 June 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104972
First term as Prime Minister

S.L.A. Marshall photo

Related topics