Quotes about nation (7665 quotes, page 39)

“Bukharin, like Lenin, regarded the system of basing economic life on mass terror not as a transient necessity but as a permanent principle of socialist organization. He did not shrink from justifying all means of coercion and held, like Trotsky at the same period, that the new system called essentially for the militarization of labour – i. e. the use of police and military force to compel the whole population to work in such places and conditions as the state might arbitrarily decree. Indeed, once the market is abolished there is no longer any free sale of labour or competition between workers, and police coercion is therefore the only means of allocating "human resources". If hired labour is eliminated, only compulsory labour remains. In other words, socialism – as conceived by both Trotsky and Bukharin at this time – is a permanent, nation-wide labour camp.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

pg. 28-9
Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume III: The Breakdown

Life , Time

“And Mr. Burnaby said acutely: "Well, it doesn't seem to have done her much good, poor lass." But after a while they stopped talking about her and discussed instead who was going to win the Grand National. For, as Mr. Ferguson was saying at that minute in Luxor, it is not the past that matters but the future.”

Agatha Christie book Death on the Nile

Death on the Nile (1937)

Past , Future

“Grouping and mutuality of countries and peoples in the Balkans is the only road that leads to economic, national and political liberation.”

Dimitrije Tucović (1881–1914) Serbian politician

Prva balkanska socijaldemokratska konferencija (u Izabrani spisi, knjiga II, str. 23) Prosveta, Beograd, 1950.

People , Country

“Truer notions of genetic physiology are given by the Hebrew expression "seed". If we speak of a man as "of the blood-royal" we think at once of plebeian dilution, and we wonder how much of the royal fluid is likely to be "in his veins"; but if we say he is "of the seed of Abraham" we feel something of the permanence and indestructibility of that germ which can be divided and scattered among all nations, but remains recognisable in type and characteristics after 4000 years.”

William Bateson (1861–1926) British geneticist and biologist

Australian Meeting of the British Association. Inaugural Address. August 20th, 1914.

Feeling , Thinking

“From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help. We have no fear expressing this… The Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor that must be removed, and God willing it will be.”

Ali Khamenei (1939) Iranian Shiite faqih, Marja' and official independent islamic leader

February 3, 2012 sermon at Friday prayers http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9059179/Iran-We-will-help-cut-out-the-cancer-of-Israel.html
2012

God , Fear , Help

“The respondents in this case insist that a difficult question of public policy must be taken from the reach of the voters, and thus removed from the realm of public discussion, dialogue, and debate in an election campaign. Quite in addition to the serious First Amendment implications of that position with respect to any particular election, it is inconsistent with the underlying premises of a responsible, functioning democracy. One of those premises is that a democracy has the capacity—and the duty—to learn from its past mistakes; to discover and confront persisting biases; and by respectful, rationale deliberation to rise above those flaws and injustices. That process is impeded, not advanced, by court decrees based on the proposition that the public cannot have the requisite repose to discuss certain issues. It is demeaning to the democratic process to presume that the voters are not capable of deciding an issue of this sensitivity on decent and rational grounds. The process of public discourse and political debate should not be foreclosed even if there is a risk that during a public campaign there will be those, on both sides, who seek to use racial division and discord to their own political advantage. An informed public can, and must, rise above this. The idea of democracy is that it can, and must, mature. Freedom embraces the right, indeed the duty, to engage in a rational, civic discourse in order to determine how best to form a consensus to shape the destiny of the Nation and its people.”

Anthony Kennedy (1936) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, 572 U. S. ____, (2016), plurality opinion.

People , Democracy , Idea , Question

“The twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying:
“We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty,
the One who is and who was,
because you have taken your great power
and have begun to reign.
The nations were angry,
and your wrath has come.
The time has come for judging the dead,
and for rewarding your servants the prophets
and your people who revere your name,
both great and small—
and for destroying those who destroy the earth.””

John of Patmos Christian saint and author of the Book of Revelation

11:16-18 NIV
Apocalypse of John

God , People , Time , Dead

“In 2001, I first voted against the PATRIOT Act because much of it was simply an FBI wish list that included provisions allowing our government to go on fishing expeditions that collect information on virtually anyone. Today’s report indicates that the government could be using FISA in an indiscriminate way that does not balance our legitimate concerns of national security with the necessity to preserve our fundamental civil rights. This is deeply troubling. I hope today’s news will renew a serious conversation about how to protect the country while ensuring that the rights of law-abiding Americans are not violated.”

Russ Feingold (1953) Wisconsin politician; three-term U.S. Senator

Following revelations that the National Security Agency was receiving phone records belonging to millions of Verizon customers on a daily basis, in [Terkel, Amanda, Watch The One Senator Who Voted Against The Patriot Act Warn What Would Happen (VIDEO), https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/07/russ-feingold-patriot-act-speech_n_3402878.html, 20 August 2018, The Huffington Post, June 7, 2013]
2013

Law , Hope , Way , Fish

“And all the world over, each nation's the same;
They've simply no mission of playing the game.
They argue with umpires - they cheer when they've won
And they practice beforehand, which ruins the fun.
The English are moral, the English are good
And clever, and modest, and misunderstood!”

Michael Flanders (1922–1975) English writer and performer

A Song of Patriotic Prejudice

World , Game

“The theory of independence is as old as man himself, and it was not invented in this hall. But it was in this hall that the theory became a practice; that the word went out to all, in Thomas Jefferson's phrase, that "the God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time." And today this Nation — conceived in revolution, nurtured in liberty, maturing in independence — has no intention of abdicating its leadership in that worldwide movement for independence to any nation or society committed to systematic human oppression.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1962, Address at Independence Hall

Life , God , Time

“How did this division of the nations come about, what was its basis? The division is in accordance with all the previous history of the up to the present day is proof of this and 1848 confirmed it. Among all the large and small nations of Austria, only three standard-bearers of progress took an active part in history, and still retain their vitality — the Germans, the Poles and the Magyars. Hence they are now revolutionary. All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish before long in the revolutionary world storm. (Weltsturm). For that reason they are now counter-revolutionary.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

The Magyar Struggle http://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/marx/works/1849/01/13.htm in ' (13 January 1849).

People , World , History , Parting

“So much about today’s adult industry seems like an undeft parody of Hollywood and the nation writ large. The top performers are comic-book caricatures of sexual allure. The prosthetic breasts and lifted buttocks and (no kidding) artificial cheekbones are nothing more than accentuations of a mentality that yields huge liposuction and collagen industries. The gynecologically explicit sexuality of Jenna, Jasmin, et al. seems more than anything like a Mad magazine spoof of the “smoldering” sexuality of Sharon Stone and Madonna and so many other mainstream iconettes. Not to mention the fact that the adult industry takes many of the psychological deformities that Hollywood is famous for—the vanity, the vulgarity, the rank commercialism—and not only makes them overt and grotesque but seems then to revel in that grotesquerie.”

David Foster Wallace book Consider the Lobster

"Big Red Son", p.29-30
Consider the Lobster (2007)

Books , Madness

“The maddest phenomenon in this wholly mad world – that the filming or wirelessing of an event, whether it is the Grand National or an attack in force on the Maginot Line, is held to be of more importance than the event itself.”

James Agate (1877–1947) British diarist and critic

Ego 4, p. 149, December 18, 1939.

World , Madness

“Marriage partners, not government, should define the terms and spiritual orientation of their union in accordance with our nation's guarantee of religious freedom.”

Michael Badnarik (1954) American software engineer

Source: Gay Rights http://badnarik.org/plans_gayrights.php

Marriage , Freedom

“In 1964, days before the presidential election which, incidentally, we lost, Ronald Reagan went on national television and challenged America saying that it was a "Time for Choosing." He saw two paths for America, one that embraced conservative principles dedicated to lifting people out of poverty and helping create opportunity for all, and the other, an oppressive government that would lead America down a darker, less free path. I'm no Ronald Reagan and this is a different moment but I believe with all my heart and soul that we face another time for choosing, one that will have profound consequences for the Republican Party and more importantly, for the country.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2016, Remarks on Donald Trump and the 2016 race

People , Soul , Time , Help

“Without forgiveness there can be no future for a relationship between individuals or within and between nations.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

As quoted in "Truth and reconciliation" at BBC Focus on Africa (January-March 2000)

Forgiveness , Future

“Americans are sacrificing. I mean, we are. You know, we pay a lot of taxes. Americans sacrificed when they, you know, when the economy went into the tank. Americans sacrificed when, you know, air travel was disrupted. American taxpayers have paid a lot to help this nation recover. I think Americans have sacrificed.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

In response to reporter Brian Williams' question as to whether, after 9/11, the president should have asked all Americans to sacrifice for their country, NBC News interview, August 29, 2006 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNIOmbm3KYg&feature=related
2000s, 2006

Travel , Thinking , Help

“That the government's power under the Taft-Hartley Act to stop a strike by injunction so clearly strengthens the hand of the employer--even though it is used only when a strike threatens the national health, welfare, or safety--is a grave blemish and explains much of union resistance to the Act.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

1930s- 1950s, The New Society (1950)

Health

“This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (1967)

Love , Wisdom , Men , Hate

“We can debate how much socialism there was in Hitler’s National Socialism. It is remarkable, however, that many of the people insisting that Norway or Sweden is obviously socialist even though they both are more free-market than Hitlerite Germany are aghast at the suggestion that the National Socialists were…socialists.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

2010s, 2018, Socialism is So Hot Right Now (2018)

People

“The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war.”

Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986) American journalist

"Purely Personal Prejudices" http://books.google.com/books?id=DLcEAQAAIAAJ&q=%22The+difference+between+patriotism+and+nationalism++is+that+the+patriot+is+proud+of+his+country+for+what+it+does+and+the+nationalist+is+proud+of+his+country+no+matter+what+it+does+the+first+attitude+creates+a+feeling+of+responsibility+but+the+second+a+feeling+of+blind+arrogance+that+leads+to+war%22&pg=PA228#v=onepage
Strictly Personal (1953)

War , Feeling , Country

“A mightier force than ever followed Grant or Lee has leveled both their hosts, raised up an united Nation, and made us all partakers of a new glory. It is not for us to forget the past but to remember it, that we may profit by it. But it is gone; we can not change it. We must put our emphasis on the present and put into effect the lessons the past has taught us.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Democracy of Sports (1924)

Change , Past , Forgetting

“Innocent and impoverished Palestinians were denied vital aid supplied from nations around the world, Hamas stole critical support for Palestinian children so that they could kill our children…I express my deepest sympathy with innocent Palestinians and those well-meaning nations who generously donated money to help them.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

Statements after the arrest of two aid workers from World Vision and the United Nations — Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel 'cares more about Palestinians than their own leaders do' after Gaza aid worker arrests http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/benjamin-netanyahu-israel-cares-more-about-palestinians-than-own-leaders-gaza-world-vision-un-hamas-a7186481.html, The Independent (12 August 2016)
2010s, 2016

Money , Children , World , Support

“The evident justice and utility of the foregoing maxims have recommended them more or less to the attention of all nations.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter II, Part II, p. 894.

Justice

“At the same time as Sorel, the revolutionary syndicalists in Italy came to this conclusion: they threw themselves enthusiastically into the war not out of patriotism, as is often thought, but because they saw it as an instrument of revolution. Since war is a conflict between nations rather than between classes, the nation was seen as the foremost agent of revolution, and Italian revolutionary syndicalism became the backbone of fascist ideology.”

Zeev Sternhell (1935) Israeli historian

Source: Neither Left nor Right: Fascist Ideology in France, 1996, p. 21

War , Time

“It's the subjugation of the entire world, it's communism, it's the immortality of mummies in mausoleums. It is the radiance of suns and rulers. It's a tower that takes ten thousand years to build. It's the might of armies, it's the burning of witches, it's the movement of people, continuous and unifying. It's the great copulation of nations, it's the swallowing of the smaller ones by the bigger ones, of the weaker ones by the stronger ones.”

Yurii Andrukhovych book The Moscoviad

The Moscoviad
Source: The Moscoviad. Yuri Andrukhovych. Spuyten Duyvil, New York City. ISBN1933132523, p. 177-178

People , World , Communication , Sun

“Hamilton doubted the cohesive force of the Constitution to make a nation. He was so far right, for no constitution can make a nation. That is a growth, and the vigor and intensity of our national growth transcended our own suspicions. It was typified by our material progress. General Hamilton died in 1804. In 1812, during the last war with England, the largest gun used was a thirty-six pounder. In the war just ended it was a two-thousand pounder. The largest gun then weighed two thousand pounds. The largest shot now weighs two thousand pounds. Twenty years after Hamilton died the traveler toiled painfully from the Hudson to Niagara on canal-boats and in wagons, and thence on horseback to Kentucky. Now he whirls from the Hudson to the Mississippi upon thousands of miles of various railroads, the profits of which would pay the interest of the national debt. So by a myriad influences, as subtle as the forces of the air and earth about a growing tree, has our nationality grown and strengthened, striking its roots to the centre and defying the tempest. Could the musing statesman who feared that Virginia or New York or Carolina or Massachusetts might rend the Union have heard the voice of sixty years later, it would have said to him, 'The babe you held in your arms has grown to be a man, who walks and runs and leaps and works and defends himself. I am no more a vapor, I am condensed. I am no more a germ, I am a life. I am no more a confederation, I am a nation.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)

Life , War , Fear , Travel

“The peoples of Europe are a work in progress and always must be… The history of the people of Europe has not ended -- it never will. Ethnogenesis is a process of the present and future as much as it is the past. No efforts of romantics, politicians, or social scientists can preserve once and for all some essential soul of a people or nation. Nor can any effort ensure that nations, ethnic groups, and communities of today will not vanish utterly in the future. The past may have set the parameters within which one can build the future, but it cannot determine what that future must be.”

Patrick J. Geary (1948) historian

Patrick J. Geary, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe, Princeton University Press, 2003

People , Soul , History , Communication

“Due to the efficient supervision of the Secretary of War the Army of the United States has been organized with a small body of Regulars and a moderate National Guard and Reserve. The defense test of September 12 demonstrated the efficiency of the operating plans. These methods and operations are well worthy of congressional support.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

War , Support

“Today, in the highly-developed capitalistic nation of the United States, the only people who could be classed as proletariat under Marx's definition would be those who own no land, have no savings deposits, no social security, no retirement benefits, no life insurance, no corporate securities and no government bonds, for all these represent the ownership of productive wealth or of money, funds over and beyond the immediate needs of consumption. Such a class of propertyless proletariat does exist in the United States just as there has been one in all nations and in all ages, but the significant thing is that the proletariat in the United States is such a small minority that Marx would scarcely want to claim it. Under American capitalism wealth has been more widely distributed among the people than in any large nation in secular history. This has reduced the property-less class which Marx had in mind to little more than a fringe of the population.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

Life , Money , People , Age

“Either we sacrifice our national selfishness for the good of humanity, or we sacrifice the good of humanity to our national selfishness.”

Frank Buchman (1878–1961) Evangelical theologist

The Revolutionary Path, by Frank Buchman, publisher: Grosvenor Books, 1975, p.23
Quotes on the war of ideas

Selfishness

“And as you know, this whole Hillary e-mail scandal brought Anthony Wiener back into the news. Now here's a question nobody has asked. Anthony Wiener is Jewish, right? Right? So does this scandal make him a Hebrew National Wiener?”

Jay Leno (1950) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, voice actor and television host

Guest monologue on The Tonight Show http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/jay-leno-takes-jimmy-fallons-867267, 31 October, 2016
The Tonight Show

Question

“But that the state in general sees as right the sole means of accepting interest-bearing loans - thus debts, when it needs money and applies its other sovereign rights today only in an underhand manner to collect the incurred debts from the people, these are conditions for which one seeks in vain for a reasonable explanation. There is indeed no reasonable explanation for it, but only the fact that our entire thought even in national financial political matters is directed or corrupted in a private capitalistic manner.”

Gottfried Feder (1883–1941) German economist and politician

Source: The German State on a National and Socialist Foundation (1923), p. 104

Money , People

“Israel is there, it is part of the United Nations and we do not deny its existence. But we still have rights and land there which have been usurped and until these matters are dealt with we will withhold our recognition.”

Khaled Mashal (1956) Palestinian terrorist

Khaled Mashal cited in Hamas leader acknowledges 'reality' of Israel http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1987305,00.html at Theguardian.com, 10 January, 2007: Hamas accepts the existence of the state of Israel but will not officially recognise it until the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
2007

Parting

“He was the first to advocate that eight hours a day in the workshop was best for industrial efficiency. The best employers in the land are now of that opinion. He did not fail there. Who can tell the horrors of industry which children suffered in factories at the beginning of the last century? Were not the Factory Acts acts of mercy? The country owed them to Robert Owen's inspiration. … He was the first who looked with practical intent into the kingdom of the unborn. He saw that posterity — the silent but inevitable master of us all — if left untrained may efface the triumphs, or dishonour, or destroy the great traditions of our race. He put infant schools into the mind of the world. Have they been failures? He, when it seemed impossible to anyone else, proposed national education for which now all the sects contend. Has that proposal been a failure?”

George Holyoake (1817–1906) British secularist, co-operator, and newspaper editor

Memorial dedication (1902)

Children , World , Education , School

“When these barbarians replicated with Steven what they did with Foley, who is from New Hampshire, they somehow think that it's going to lessen US resolve, frighten us, intimidate us. But if they think the American people will be intimidated, they don't know us very well. We came back after 9/11, we dusted ourselves off and we made sure that Osama Bin Ladin would never ever again threaten the American people. We came back Boston strong, blaming no one, but resolve to be certain that this didn't happen again. Today America may be still grieving from Jim Foley, a native from New Hampshire as I said he grew up in Rochester, but the American people are so much stronger, so much more resolved than any enemy can fully understand. As a nation, we are united. And when people harm Americans, we don't retreat, we don't forget, we take care of those grieving. And when that's finished, they should know [that] we follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice, because hell is where they will reside.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Joe Biden Speech Transcript: We Will Follow Them to the Gates of Hell http://www.crossmap.com/news/joe-biden-speech-transcript-we-will-follow-them-to-the-gates-of-hell-11970#ixzz3R6YDaKKw (September 3 2014)
2000s

People , Justice , Hell , Understanding

“Do not let us imagine that discoveries in the world of the higher mathematics, of physics or biology are going to remove or even reduce our difficulties on the moral plane…The realm of morals is a world neither of quantity nor of chemical action. It is a world of values. It is precisely these values of right and wrong, of good and evil, of honesty and courage, which matter supremely for religion and national life…I am not despising science. I am only suggesting that moral values, eternal in their quality, transient in their form and application, are the foundation of a country's greatness. If moral values flourish in our common life all will be well with the nation.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the annual assembly of the Congregational Union, London (12 May 1931), published in This Torch of Freedom (1935), pp. 86-87.
1931

Life , World , Religion , Imagination

“According to my judgement, the French Revolution and the doings of Napoleon opened the eyes of the world. The nations knew nothing before and the people thought that kings were gods upon the earth and that they were bound to say that whatever they did as well done.”

Theodoros Kolokotronis (1770–1843) Greek general

Kolokotronis's Memoirs, (2013)

God , People , World

“As part of the National Strategy, the Government should commit itself to the virtual elimination of functional illiteracy and innumeracy.”

Claus Moser, Baron Moser (1922–2015) British statistician and Civil Servant

The Moser report on Literacy and Numeracy http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Database/moserec.html

Parting

“Such is the real distribution of duties, responsibilities, and expenses. Yet people are given to thinking and speaking of the National Government as 'the Government'. They demand more from it than it was ever intended to provide; and yet in the same breath they complain that Federal authority is stretching itself over areas which do not concern it. On one side, there are demands for more amendments to the Constitution. On the other, there is too much opposition to those that already exist.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

People , Thinking

“The nation has placed its faith in the precept that all laws should be inspired by actual needs here on earth as a basic fact of national life.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

As quoted in A World View of Criminal Justice (2005) by Richard K. Vogler, p. 116

Life , Faith , Law

“All historically great races and nations have been produced by mixing; but wherever the difference of type is too great to be bridged over, then we have mongrels. That is the case here. The crossing between Bedouin and Syrian was — from an anatomical point of view — probably worse than that between Spaniard and South American Indian.”

Houston Stewart Chamberlain book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century

The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts) (1899)

“Now, of course, one of the difficulties in speaking out today grows the fact that there are those who are seeking to equate dissent with disloyalty. It's a dark day in our nation when high-level authorities will seek to use every method to silence dissent. But something is happening, and people are not going to be silenced. The truth must be told, and I say that those who are seeking to make it appear that anyone who opposes the war in Vietnam is a fool or a traitor or an enemy of our soldiers is a person that has taken a stand against the best in our tradition.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam (1967)

War , People , Truth , Fools

“…the Indian tradition of non-violence and purity of motive and means, the tradition of ethical and religious approach to all political questions and noted that these had found a perfect embodiment in Mahatma Gandhi…One could draw up a whole declaration of human rights in terms of ahimsa. If individuals and nations are animated by such a belief in a beneficent Supreme Power; in truth and in human brotherhood, we can look forward to a future free from anxiety and fear and full of hope and promise of happiness.”

Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974) Indian writer

In another of his speeches on Indian tradition quoted in "Jayachamaraja Wodeyar – A Princely scholar".

Truth , Fear , Hope , Motivation

“With the sure sagacity of a leader of men, Washington at once selected, for the highest and most responsible stations, the three chief Americans who represented the three forces in the nation which alone could command success in the institution of the government. Hamilton was the head, Jefferson was the heart, and John Jay was the conscience. Washington's just and serene ascendancy was the lambent flame in which these beneficent powers were fused, and nothing less than that ascendancy could have ridden the whirlwind and directed the storm that burst around him.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

As quoted in Manual Of Patriotism : For Use in the Public Schools of the State of New York (1900) By Charles Rufus Skinner, p. 261.

Men , Success , Heart

“It is as if a really secure nationalism, already in possession of its nation-state, can fail to see itself as 'nationalist' at all. Its own distinctive bonding is perceived as natural and obvious by contrast with the mere projections of any nationalism which is still in active progress and thus incomplete. At this point radicals and minority nationalists emphasize the artificialities of the settled 'common sense' nation-state and to their own satisfaction shoot them to pieces from history and from social theory.”

Raymond Williams (1921–1988) philosopher

Who Speaks For Wales?: Nation, Culture, Identity (published posthumously in 2003), p. 193

History , Nature , Sense

“All the European democracies have far higher election turnouts than ours, and all of them provide their candidates with extensive free airtime. In fact, of all the major nations worldwide that profess to have democracies, only seven — just seven — do not offer free time. These are Ecuador, Honduras, Malaysia, Taiwan, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States of America. Does it make us proud to be on such a list?”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Free the Airwaves! (2002)

Democracy , Time

“The national polities of the modern world maintain their existence by deliberately fostered craving and fear…. The “free world” has become economically dependent on a fantastic system of stimulation of greed which cannot be fulfilled, sexual desire which cannot be satiated and hatred which has no outlet…. They create populations of “preta” — hungry ghosts, with giant appetites and throats no bigger than needles. The soil, the forests and all animal life are being consumed by these cancerous collectivities; the air and water of the planet is being fouled by them.”

Gary Snyder (1930) American poet

"Buddhism and the Coming Revolution" (1961, 1969)

Life , World , Fear , Water

“There exists a shadowy government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself.”

Daniel Inouye (1924–2012) American politician from Hawaii, Medal of Honor recipient and World War II veteran

Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition (Iran-Contra hearings) (1987)
Video of Inouye's excerpt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbFphX5zb8w
Daniel K. Inouye: Reference of excerpt http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Daniel-K.-Inouye
The Mission of Sheltron: Reference http://www.sheltron.us/sheltron/introduction.html

Law , Idea

“The effort necessary to remain uncorrupted in an environment where fear is an integral part of everyday existence is not immediately apparent to those fortunate enough to live in states governed by the rule of law. Just laws do not merely prevent corruption by meting out impartial punishment to offenders. They also help to create a society in which people can fulfil the basic requirements necessary for the preservation of human dignity without recourse to corrupt practices. Where there are no such laws, the burden of upholding the principles of justice and common decency falls on the ordinary people. It is the cumulative effect on their sustained effort and steady endurance which will change a nation where reason and conscience are warped by fear into one where legal rules exist to promote man's desire for harmony and justice while restraining the less desirable destructive traits in his nature.”

Aung San Suu Kyi book Freedom from Fear

Freedom from Fear (1991)

People , Fear , Justice , Law

“The Austrian Germans and Magyars will be set free and wreak a bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians. The general war which will then break out will smash this Slav Sonderbund and wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names. The next classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

Referring to the Serb uprising of 1848–49, in which Serbs from Vojvodina fought against the previously victorious Hungarian revolution.
Source: The Magyar Struggle http://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/marx/works/1849/01/13.htm in ' (13 January 1849).

Revenge , People , War

““Oh! my brother Musalmans! I again remind you that you have ruled nations, and have for centuries held different countries in your grasp. For seven hundred years in India you have had Imperial sway. You know what it is to rule.”… “Our nation is of the blood of those who made not only Arabia, but Asia and Europe, to tremble. It is our nation which conquered with its sword the whole of India, although its peoples were all of one religion.””

Syed Ahmed Khan (1820–1898) Indian educator and politician

Quoted from After a Century it is time to revisit Sir Syed Ahmad Khan’s legacy https://www.myind.net/Home/viewArticle/after-a-century-it-is-time-to-revisit-sir-syed-ahmad-khans-legacy Avatans Kumar Jan 27, 2018. Also quoted in The Great Speeches of Modern India by Rudranghsu Mukherjee

People , Religion , Country

“The next priority of my budget is to do everything possible to protect our citizens and strengthen our nation against the ongoing threat of another attack. Time and distance from the events of September the 11th will not make us safer unless we act on its lessons. America is no longer protected by vast oceans. We are protected from attack only by vigorous action abroad, and increased vigilance at home.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

Home , Time

“Iran has nothing to hide. However, in order to proceed towards settling the Iranian nuclear file, we need to reach national consensus and rapprochement and understanding on an international level. This can only happen through dialogue.”

Hassan Rouhani (1948) 7th President of Islamic Republic of Iran

Presidential campaign, 2013

Understanding

“…that every individual spontaneously tries to find the place and the trade in which he can best increase National gain, if laws do not prevent him from doing so.”

Anders Chydenius book The National Gain

The National Gain, §5, 1765. Here Chydenius could be said to describe the invisible hand eleven years before Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations.

Law

“The "human rights" advertised by the imperialists are privileges of the rich, privileges to do anything on the strength of money. The imperialists do not recognize the right of unemployed people to work, or the right of orphans or people without support to eat and survive, for instance, as human rights. As they do not grant working people elementary rights to existence and as they pursue anti-popular policies and policies of racial and national discrimination and colonialism, the imperialists have no right to speak about human rights. The imperialists are the most heinous enemy of human rights.”

Kim Jong-il (1941–2011) General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea

"Socialism is a Science" http://www.korea-dpr.com/lib/106.pdf, article in Rodong Sinmun (1 November 1994)

Money , People , Support

“On the whole it may be observed, that the specific use of a body of unproductive consumers, is to give encouragement to wealth by maintaining such a balance between produce and consumption as will give the greatest exchangeable value to the results of the national industry.”

Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy

Book II, Chapter I, On The Progress of Wealth, Section IX, p. 412-413
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

Wealth

“It does not follow because many books are written by persons born in America that there exists an American literature. Books which imitate or represent the thoughts and life of Europe do not constitute an American literature. Before such can exist, an original idea must animate this nation and fresh currents of life must call into life fresh thoughts along its shores.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

"American Literature" in Papers on Literature and Art (1846), p. 122.

Life , Books , Literature , Idea

“Although a century and a half measured in comparison with the length of human experience is but a short time, yet measured in the life of governments and nations it ranks as a very respectable period. Certainly enough time has elapsed to demonstrate with a great deal of thoroughness the value of our institutions and their dependability as rules for the regulation of human conduct and the advancement of civilization. They have been in existence long enough to become very well seasoned. They have met, and met successfully, the test of experience.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

Life , Time , Dependency , Season

“When we call to mind the fact that this persecution is waged against men for the simple reason that they dare vote with the party that saved the Union intact by the lavish expenditure of blood and treasure, and has borne the nation safely through the fearful crisis of these last few years, our hearts swell with an overwhelming indignation.”

Joseph Hayne Rainey (1832–1887) politician

1871, Speech on the the Ku Klux Klan Bill of 1871 (1 April 1871)

Men , Fear , Heart

“What, then, is the Constitution? I will tell you. It is not even like the British Constitution, which is made up of enactments of Parliament, decisions of Courts, and the established usages of the Government. The American Constitution is a written instrument full and complete in itself. No Court in America, no Congress, no President, can add a single word thereto, or take a single word threreto. It is a great national enactment done by the people, and can only be altered, amended, or added to by the people. I am careful to make this statement here; in America it would not be necessary. It would not be necessary here if my assailant had shown the same desire to be set before you the simple truth, which he manifested to make out a good case for himself and friends.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery? (1860)

People , Truth , Decision

“First, then, I went to the Indians, the mightiest nation upon earth. I had little trouble in persuading them to descend from their elephants and follow me. The Brahmins, who dwell between Oxydracae and the country of the Nechrei, are mine to a man: they live according to my laws, and are respected by all their neighbours; and the manner of their death is truly wonderful.”

Lucian (120) ancient Greek writer

The Runaways http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl4/wl421.htm

Death , Law , Country

“People sometimes ask me what I think of the world today – as if 10,000 published Thoughts do not provide sufficient enlightenment on that subject. But let me not shrink from an honest answer. In world affairs. I am an optimist. Despite attention-grabbing headlines about the latest shocking incidents, and worrisome developments resulting from the fact that nationalism is still trumping internationalism, I believe that overall the people being born today, in whatever countries and circumstances, have a better chance than ever before of living worthwhile lives. At nearly 84, I'm sorry science hasn't yet invalidated the concept of mortality – but that, I'm sure, is coming. And, in the meantime, as inhabitants of this small planet, perhaps with most of our worst times behind us, I'm confident that we can, in general, find much to be thankful for.”

Ashleigh Brilliant (1933) American author and cartoonist

From his Brilliant News email messages to subscribers, Tuesday, November 21 20017

People , World , Confidence , Thinking

“Aimee Teegarden: Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U. S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?
Caitlin Upton: I personally believe that U. S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should—our education over here in the U. S. should help the U. S., uh, or, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq, and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children.”

Caitlin Upton (1989) American model

2007 Miss Teen USA Pageant, 24 August 2007 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww
The Yale Book of Quotations designated the response the second most memorable quote of 2007 http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/12/19/us-quotes-odd-idUSN1959512020071219
Upton won the 2007 World Stupidity Award for the Stupidest Statement of the Year https://web.archive.org/web/20090106013000/http://www.stupidityawards.com/Stupidest_Statement_of_the_Year.html

Children , People , World , Education

“Aside from the humanitarian aspects, it is well known that, under excruciating torture, a prisoner will admit almost any suggested crime. Such confessions are, of course, not admissible in trials in civilized nations. The primary goal of torture or the threat of torture is not to obtain convictions for crimes, but to engender and maintain fear. Some of our leaders have found that it is easy to forgo human rights for those who are considered to be subhuman, or "enemy combatants."”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Page 129
Post-Presidency, Our Endangered Values (2005)

Fear

“Given the nature and reach of our enemies, we will win this conflict by the patient accumulation of successes, by meeting a series of challenges with determination and will and purpose. Today we focus on Afghanistan, but the battle is broader. Every nation has a choice to make. In this conflict, there is no neutral ground. If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocence, they have become outlaws and murderers themselves. And they will take that lonely path at their own peril.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, Invasion of Afghanistan (October 2001)

Nature , Success

“This knowledge, the knowledge that the physical well-being of the citizen is an important foundation for the vigor and vitality of all the activities of the nation, is as old as Western civilization itself.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1960, Sport at the New Frontier: The Soft American

Knowledge

“We are socialists because we believe we live now in a world that requires a great deal of thoughtful planning ahead of time. We are socialists because we live in a world that is peculiarly interdependent, and to a degree quite unknown in earlier times. […] We are socialists because we believe in this kind of world - in this anarchy of nations - we need to have a concept that the great purpose of life is to manage our extraordinary scientific and technological achievements and our resources for the common good. It’s not easy and it cannot be the byproduct of a game where everybody seeks the maximum profit for himself, either men or nations in that role.”

Norman Thomas (1884–1968) American Presbyterian minister and socialist

Debate with Barry Goldwater, University of Arizona campus, Tucson, Arizona, November 1961

Life , Men , World , Game

“One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

"Hitler and His Choice", The Strand Magazine (November 1935).
The 1930s

Hope , Courage , Country

“You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly. In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it “Bulverism”. Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father—who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than a third—”Oh you say that because you are a man.” “At that moment”, E. Bulver assures us, “there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall.””

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.
"Bulverism" (1941)

Truth , Age , World , Parting

“The members of this Elite are either direct incarnations of the fourth-dimensional Prison Warders or have their minds controlled by them. The aim of the Brotherhood and its interdimensional controllers has been to centralise power in the hands of the few. This process is now very advanced and it is happening on a global scale today thanks to modern technology. The game-plan is known as the Great Work of Ages or the New World Order, and it presently seeks to introduce a world government to which all nations would be colonies; a world central bank and currency; a world army; and a micro-chipped population connected to a global computer. What is happening today is the culmination of the manipulation which has been unfolding for thousands of years.”

David Icke (1952) English writer and public speaker

ibid

Age , World , Game

“We strive to form a single national front against the Judeo-Masonic lodges, against Moscow and the Marxist societies.”

Francisco Franco (1892–1975) Spanish general and dictator

Statement in El defensor de Córdoba (24 July 1936), as cited by Javier Navarrete in Más Allá http://mcedhou1.housings.nexica.net/MAS_ALLA/html/version_texto.asp?IDArt=29

“Their minds befogged by fashionable nonsense about globalisation, western leaders believe liberal democracy is spreading unstoppably. The reality is continuing political diversity. Republics, empires, liberal and illiberal democracies, and a wide variety of authoritarian regimes will be with us for the foreseeable future. Globalisation is nothing more than the industrialisation of the planet, and increasing resource nationalism is an integral part of the process. (So is accelerating climate change, but that's another story.) As industrialisation spreads, countries that control natural resources use these resources to advance their strategic objectives.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

"Folly of the progressive fairytale," http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/09/russia The Observer (2008-09-08)

Democracy , Fashion , Nature , Reality

“It is nationalism which engenders nations, and not the other way round.”

Ernest Gellner (1925–1995) Czech anthropologist, philosopher and sociologist

Nations and Nationalism (1983)

Way

“We are now more Socialist in many ways than any other developed country outside the Communist bloc—in the size of the public sector, the range of controls and the telescoping of net income. And what is the result? Compare our position today with that of our neighbours in north west Europe—Germany, Sweden, Holland, France. They are no more talented than we are. Yet, compared with them, we have the longest working hours, the lowest pay and the lowest production per head. We have the highest taxes and the lowest investment. We have the least prosperity, the most poor and the lowest pensions. We have the largest nationalized sector and the worst labour troubles.”

Keith Joseph (1918–1994) British barrister and politician

Speech in Upminster http://www.margaretthatcher.org/archive/displaydocument.asp?docid=110604 (22 June 1974)
1970s

Way , Country

“The State of Israel is a national home for the entire Jewish people and it is clear to me that there is no dispute between any party or Zionist movement, while the nation-state law was originally intended to reinforce this principle, the most recent amendments to it are of great concern because they drive a wedge between Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora.”

Natan Sharansky (1948) Israeli politician

In a letter to Amir Ohan about the Clause 7B of the Basic Law proposal: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, as quoted in Sharansky: Jewish state bill will ‘drive a wedge’ between Israel and Diaspora https://www.timesofisrael.com/sharansky-jewish-state-bill-will-drive-a-wedge-between-israel-and-diaspora/ (11 July 2018) by Raoul Wootliff, The Times of Israel.

People , Law , Home

“We are men and women from many lands, representing a rich variety of cultures. And we have been brought together to work in a great common cause: the survival and progress of mankind. The concept of unity in diversity … underlies our various pursuits at the United Nations.”

Kurt Waldheim (1918–2007) 4th Secretary-General of the United Nations, President of Austria

World-service speech http://www.srichinmoylibrary.com/stsg-8, 1978

Women , Men

“National politics has become devalued today because of casteism, communalism and regionalism. A few seats from one state is enough to launch you nationally.”

Subramanian Swamy (1939) Indian politician

1999-2010
Source: As quoted in "The Rediff Interview: Subramanian Swamy" http://www.rediff.com/news/mar/15shob.htm, Rediff (1 February 2001)

Communication

“Palestinians and Arabs were not the only ones cast as Nazis. Israel was also accused — by Israelis as well as by Palestinians — of Nazi-style crimes. In the context of Israeli massacres of Palestinians in 1948, a number of Israeli ministers referred to the actions of Israeli soldiers as "Nazi actions," prompting Benny Marshak, the education officer of the Palmach, to ask them to stop using the term. Indeed, after the massacre at al-Dawayima, Agriculture Minister Aharon Zisling asserted in a cabinet meeting that he "couldn't sleep all night… Jews too have committed Nazi acts." Similar language was used after the Israeli army gunned down forty-seven Israeli Palestinian men, women, and children at Kafr Qasim in 1956. While most Israeli newspapers at the time played down the massacre, a rabbi rote that "we must demand of the entire nation a sense of shame and humiliation… that soon we will be like Nazias and the perpetrators of pogroms." The Palestinians were soon to level the same accusation against the Israelis. Such accusations increased during the intifada. One of the communiqués issued by the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising defined the intifada as consisting of "the children and young men of the stones and Molotov cocktails, the thousands of women who miscarried as a result of poison gas and tear gas grenades, and those women whose sons and husbands were thrown in the Nazi prisons." The Israelis were always outraged by such accusations, even when the similarities were stark. When the board of Yad Vashem, for example, was asked to condemn the act of an Israeli army officer who instructed his soldiers to inscribe numbers on the arms of Palestinians, board chairman Gideon Hausner "squelched the initiative, ruling that it had no relevance to the Holocaust."”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Massad, in Palestinian and Jewish History: Recognition or Submission? in the Autumn 2000 issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies.
On Comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany

Women , Men , Children , Education

“The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization….
The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning.
The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.
It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.
But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

Remarks at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (May 22, 1964). Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963–64, book 1, p. 704.
1960s

Life , Wisdom , Men , Hunger

“Two missiles from an American jet killed them all – by my estimate, more than 20 Iraqi civilians, torn to pieces before they could be 'liberated' by the nation that destroyed their lives. Who dares, I ask myself, to call this 'collateral damage?”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

'It was an outrage, an obscenity' http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles196.htm, March 27, 2003
2003

“I leave you with a complaint. Now, the country is in a terrible state, and you've blamed it on a number of things: Unemployment rate, the value of the pound and all that… well, it's because the national anthem is boring.”

Billy Connolly (1942) British comedian

An Audience With Billy - 1985

Country

“What kind of a society is this where a person can’t express attraction without fearing that they’re going to be murdered for it? If the person who came out with the secret was a Jewish woman or a black woman or an Asian woman, and he went over to her house the next day and killed her because he was so repulsed and she had embarrassed him that way on national television, nobody would be writing stories on the TV show’s responsibility. Everyone would be writing stories about this racist, this anti-Semite.”

Jeffrey Montgomery (1953–2016) American LGBT rights activist and public relations executive

The New York Times, 1995 [Remembering Jeff Montgomery, LGBTQ rights advocate, Ennis, Dawn, LGBTQ Nation, July 19, 2016, 2016-07-19, http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2016/07/remembering-jeff-montgomery-lgbtq-rights-advocate/]

Secret , Fear , Way , Housing

“It really surprises me that some people in this party think we owe Westpac something. Or the ANZ Bank. Or the National.”

Paul Keating (1944) Australian politician, 24th Prime Minister of Australia

Australian Labor Party national conference, July 1984.

People , Thinking

“It is thought by many, and said by some, that this republic has already seen its best days; that the historian may now write the story of its decline and fall. Two classes of men are just now especially afflicted with such forebodings. The first are those who are croakers by nature. The men who have a taste for funerals, and especially national funerals. They never see the bright side of anything, and probably never will. Like the raven in the lines of Edgar A. Poe, they have learned two words, and those are, 'never more'. They usually begin by telling us what we never shall see. Their little speeches are about as follows: You will never see such statesmen in the councils of the Nations as Clay, Calhoun and Webster. You will never see the south morally reconstructed and our once happy people again united. You will never see this Government harmonious and successful while in the hands of different races. You will never make the negro work without a master, or make him an intelligent voter, or a good and useful citizen. This last never is generally the parent of all the other little 'nevers' that follow.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

Men , People , Intelligence , Nature

“Bernie wants us to live under the heavenly socialist–communist system like China. We never hear the left criticize that Mao Tse-Tung killed over 80 million people—the Chinese government admits—biggest mass murder in history. That's why there's so many liberal trendy places in Austin, in Denver, in New York, in LA, and San Francisco named after Mao. And people go and love play on their iPhones and the free market and their Chinese slave goods, and they drink beer and expensive wine and giggle about how fun it is to wear red stars. You couldn't put more bad luck on you, you couldn't trash your mojo better. Wearing swastika armbands, you stupid snot-nosed crud! That live off the backs of everybody that fought Nazism and Communism. You need to have your jaws broken! Don't you worry, reality is gonna crash in on you, trash! Who lowered our defenses and brought the Republic down; oh, we're already gone! And you celebrate it like you've joined the globalists mounting America's head on the wall, your great victory! A mass rape of women across Europe. The national draft coming in for women! The families falling apart! Women degraded into nothing but sexual objects! ALL in the name of Gloria Steinem and the Central Intelligence Agency program! And a Bernie Sanders with his fake Einstein hair, and his 'I'm a man of the people!' We go out and talk to Bernie Sanders' supporters, they can hardly talk—they're like him—'Free! Free! I want free stuff!' As if the New World Order is gonna give you anything free! Oh, it's free like a piece of cheese. And a little mouse comes out and it smells it and goes to bite it and, WA BAM! Breaks your neck. But your stupider than the little mouse. You can see all the countries and all the people caught in the mouse traps, caught in the big bear traps. You know what you do? You go into a trendy shop. On some capitalist strip. And you go in and you snuggle in with that credit card that daddy put money in for the trust fund. And you put on that little fur-rimmed coat and you're all sexy with your hammer and sickle on, and your Che Guevara and, you know, shirt from Rage Against the Machine, and the whole capitalist record company system selling it to you, and you go out on the street and you walk into McDonald's and you have yourself a double latte, oh yeah. Pathetic! Scum! Oh, how you'll burn in the camps, later. Wishing you had done something; I mean, you are the ultimate chumps, the ultimate buffoons, the ultimate schmucks!… But the public had so much freedom! They were so wealthy, even our poorest, they had no idea that what they were replacing it with was abject slavery.”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

"Sanders Supporters are Pathetic Scum" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooNxJnf_UAI, February 2016

Love , Women , Money , Bad luck

“Much of women's resentment toward men at the moment is related to their notion that men, since they are supposed to be superior, should meet all their needs, and that is a pretty heavy trip to lay one anyone and generally leaves men feeling they've been charged with the national debt.”

Merle Shain (1935–1989) Canadian writer

Some Men are More Perfect Than Others (1973)

Women , Men , Feeling

“In these days a man is nobody unless his biography is kept so far posted up that it may be ready for the national breakfast-table on the morning after his demise.”

Anthony Trollope book Doctor Thorne

Source: Doctor Thorne (1858), Ch. 25

“Immigration is everyone's business: it is one of the most important national issues. The idea that it is too dangerous to be debated is a mockery of democracy. It is too important not to debate.”

Geoffrey Blainey book All for Australia

All for Australia (1984)

Democracy , Idea , Business

“So, it is true that one’s homeland is entirely human, emotional and that it is the root of action, of authority, of responsibility from which one can build Europe. What elements? Well, [nation] States, because only States are valid, are legitimate, in this respect, in addition they are capable of… As I have already said and I repeat, that at the present time, there cannot be any other Europe than that of the States, apart of course from myths, fictions, parades. From this solidarity depends all hope of uniting Europe in the political field and in the field of defense, as in the economic field. From this solidarity depends, therefore, the destiny of Europe as a whole, from the Atlantic to the Urals.”

Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) eighteenth President of the French Republic

Alors, il est vrai que la Patrie est un élément humain, sentimental et que c’est sur des éléments d’action, d’autorité, de responsabilité qu’on peut construire l’Europe. Quels éléments? Eh bien, les États, car il n’y a que les États qui, à cet égard, soient valables, soient légitimes et en outre soient capables de réaliser… J’ai déjà dit et je répète, qu’à l’heure qu’il est, il ne peut pas y avoir d’autre Europe possible que celle des États, en dehors naturellement des mythes, des fictions, des parades. De cette solidarité dépend tout espoir d’unir l’Europe dans le domaine politique et dans le domaine de la défense, comme dans le domaine économique. De cette solidarité dépend, par conséquent, le destin de l’Europe tout entière, depuis l’Atlantique jusqu’à l’Oural.
Press conference, Elysée Palace, Paris, 15 May 1962
Fifth Republic and other post-WW2

Hope , Time , Dependency

“The only thing that has ever distinguished America among the nations is that she has shown that all men are entitled to the benefits of the law.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Address in New York, 14 December 1906 http://books.google.com/books?id=Bc7iAAAAMAAJ&q=%22the+thing+that+has+ever+distinguished+America+among+the+nations+is+that+she+has+shown+that+all+men+are%22&pg=PA530#v=onepage
1900s

Men , Law

“At the moment, money from Gombe tourism goes into one pot for Tanzania National Parks and it has to pay for the whole infrastructure of everything. But through our TACARE [community development] programme, we’ve benefited local people hugely.
The thing is about tourism and research is that they can both focus attention on the place and help to preserve it. It’s tourism involvement with the mountain gorillas that saved them.
During the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s, people on both sides were being told, “Don’t touch the gorillas”, as it was the second biggest foreign exchange earner after tea in the country. So both sides hoped to win and continue exploiting gorillas.
So the government can see the value of tourism, but the danger is they over-exploit it. They say, “We’re getting all this money for [gorilla-tracking groups of] six people, now we’ll let it be 12”, and they get more money for tours, so they make it 20. That’s the danger; that they end up killing what people have come to see.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Wanderlust interview (2009)

Money , People , Hope , Mountain

“It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history. Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their importance. This is especially true of the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

Men , World , History , Idea

“One of the most powerful engines of development and prosperity is trade and investment, which create new opportunities for entrepreneurs, and help people rise out of poverty, and reinforce fundamental values like transparency and rule of law. For all these reasons, many in these chambers have conducted free trade agreements at bilateral and regional levels. The most effective step of all would be an agreement that tears down trade barriers at the global level. The recent impasse in the Doha round is disappointing, but that does not have to be the final word. I urge every nation to seize this opportunity to lift up economies around the world and reach a successful Doha agreement as soon as possible. Beyond Doha, our nations must renew our commitment to open economies, and stand firm against economic isolationism. These objectives are being tested by turbulence in the global financial markets. Our economies are more closely connected than ever before, and I know that many of you here are watching how the United States government will address the problems in our financial system.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)

People , World , Law , Disappointment

“The head of a free nation's government must direct towards obscure and shifting objectives the actions of a group of people who are not compelled to obey him by anything except the fear of anarchy, which fear does not exist in times f social peace. He can do nothing without being criticized by opponents whose desire to put someone in his place makes them the more pitiless. His lieutenants are not respectful assistants; they are his equals and his eventual successors.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Leadership

People , Fear , Peace , Time

“I don't think that Kandinsky was ever really a communist. He just happened to be in Russia [Kandinsky went to Russia in 1914, because of the outbreak of the war, ànd his Russsian nationality] and to become involved in some revolutionary artistic activities because of his reputation as a revolutionary in the arts. In any case, he left Russia as soon as an opportunity arose. But we had parted, by that time, and I prefer not to express any opinion on Kandinsky's later ideas and beliefs, with which I was never familiar.”

Gabriele Münter (1877–1962) German painter

Source: Interview by Edouard Roditi (1958), pp. 118-119

War , Art , Idea , Thinking

“The real struggle today, just as in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, is between a view of the world termed liberalism or radicalism, for which the primary object of government and of foreign policy is peace, freedom of trade and intercourse, and economic wealth and that other view, militarist or rather diplomatic, which thinks in terms of power, prestige, national or personal glory, the imposition of a culture and hereditary or racial prejudice. To the good English radical, the latter is so unreal, so crazy in its combination of futility and evil, that he is often in danger of forgetting or disbelieving its actual existence.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

published in Manchester Guardian (1922); in Collected Writings, Volume 17, p. 370

World , Peace , Thinking , Freedom

“There's a word the teabaggers have wanted to use since Obama came on the scene, but they can't because it's not the 1950s. They would love to say this word. It begins with an N and ends with -er, and it's not "nation-builder."”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

But I'm Not Wrong (2010)

Love

“The War of the Roses in England and the Civil War in America were both intestinal conflicts arising out of similar ideas. In the first the clash was between feudalism and the new economic order; in the second, between an agricultural society and a new industrial one. Both led to similar ends; the first to the founding of the English nation, and the second to the founding of the American. Both were strangely interlinked; for it was men of the old military and not of the new economic mind—men, such as Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh — who founded the English colonies in America.”

J. F. C. Fuller (1878–1966) British Army general

Grant and Lee: A Study in Personality and Generalship, ch. 1 (1957).

Men , War , Idea

“And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved…. I told the country we did that. And I also told them it was legal. We had legal opinions that enabled us to do it.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

In an interview http://www.miamiherald.com/519/story/492943.html regarding his awareness that his top national security advisors had discussed the details of harsh interrogation tactics to be used on detainees (April 11, 2008)
2000s, 2008

Country

Quotes about nation page 39

Quotes about nation
page 39