Quotes about nation
page 52

Alija Izetbegović photo
William C. Davis photo

“The South had a far better chance of preserving its institutions and quirks of culture by remaining a part of a larger nation.”

William C. Davis (1946) American historian

Source: Look Away!: A History of the Confederate States of America (2002), p. 21

Ilana Mercer photo

“Those of us who want the U. S. to stay solvent—and out of the affairs of others—recognize that sovereign nation-states that resist, not enable, our imperial impulses, are the best hindrance to hegemonic overreach.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“The Speaker vs. The Decider,” http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/foreign-56997-power-pelosi.html The Orange County Register, April 10, 2007.
2000s, 2007

Georges Clemenceau photo

“Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”

Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) French politician

Actually said by Charles de Gaulle, on leaving his presidency, Life, May 9, 1969.
Misattributed

George S. Patton photo

“Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

Though Patton commissioned this prayer and ordered 250,000 copies of it printed with his signature, it was actually composed by Chief Chaplain James H. O'Neill http://www.pattonhq.com/prayer.html Review of the News (6 October 1971)
Misattributed

Anthony Eden photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Alan Greenspan photo

“When trust is lost, a nation's ability to transact business is palpably undermined.”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

Source: 2000s, The Age of Turbulence (2008), Chapter Twelve, "The Universals of Economic Growth", p. 256.

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey photo

“To assist the Spaniards is morally and politically one of the highest duties a nation ever had to perform.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Letter to Lord Brougham (29 September 1808) on the Spanish uprising against Napoleon's invasion, quoted in The Life and Times of Lord Brougham, Written By Himself. Volume I (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1871), p. 288.
1800s

François Mitterrand photo
Doug Dorst photo

“In a nation of sheep, one brave man forms a majority.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“I have always believed that freedom of information is so vital that only the national security, not the desire of public officials or private citizens, should determine when it must be restricted.”

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

1960s, Statement on the Freedom of Information Act (1966)

Norman Mailer photo
George W. Bush photo
Annie Besant photo

“Liberty is a great celestial Goddess, strong, beneficent, and austere, and she can never descend upon a nation by the shouting of crowds, nor by arguments of unbridled passion, nor by the hatred of class against class.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

The Political Thought of Annie Besant http://books.google.co.in/books?id=p-j4fWQxpGIC&pg=PA104, p. 104

Kamisese Mara photo
Frederick Douglass photo
George W. Bush photo
Melanie Phillips photo
Antonin Scalia photo
Zell Miller photo
Julia Ward Howe photo
Theo Jansen photo
Abba Eban photo

“History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.”

Abba Eban (1915–2002) Israeli diplomat and politician

Speech in London (16 December 1970); as quoted in The Times [London] (17 December 1970) and in Great Jewish Quotations (1996) by Alfred J. Kolatch, p. 115.

Al Gore photo
Keshub Chunder Sen photo
Sri Aurobindo photo

“Our first necessity, if India is to survive and do her appointed work in the world, is that the youth of India should learn to think,—to think on all subjects, to think independently, fruitfully, going to the heart of things, not stopped by their surface, free of prejudgments, shearing sophism and prejudice asunder as with a sharp sword, smiting down obscurantism of all kinds as with the mace of Bhima. (…) When there is destruction, it is the form that perishes, not the spirit—for the world and its ways are forms of one Truth which appears in this material world in ever new bodies…. In India, the chosen land, [that Truth] is preserved; in the soul of India it sleeps expectant on that soul's awakening, the soul of India leonine, luminous, locked in the closed petals of the ancient lotus of love, strength and wisdom, not in her weak, soiled, transient and miserable externals. India alone can build the future of mankind. (…) Ancient or pre-Buddhistic Hinduism sought Him both in the world and outside it; it took its stand on the strength and beauty and joy of the Veda, unlike modern or post-Buddhistic Hinduism which is oppressed with Buddha's sense of universal sorrow and Shankara's sense of universal illusion,—Shankara who was the better able to destroy Buddhism because he was himself half a Buddhist. Ancient Hinduism aimed socially at our fulfilment in God in life, modern Hinduism at the escape from life to God. The more modern ideal is fruitful of a noble and ascetic spirituality, but has a chilling and hostile effect on social soundness and development; social life under its shadow stagnates for want of belief and delight, sraddha and ananda. If we are to make our society perfect and the nation is to live again, then we must revert to the earlier and fuller truth.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

1910-1912
India's Rebirth

Lee Child photo
Aldous Huxley photo
Ilana Mercer photo

“The National Education Association is the al-Qaida of education.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Shafting Boys," http://www.ilanamercer.com/Shafting%20Boys.htm WorldNetDaily.com, January 27, 2006.
2000s, 2006

Adolf Hitler photo

“The Revolution we have made is not a national revolution, but a National-Socialist Revolution. We would even underline this last word, "Socialist."”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

April 18, 1934. Attributed by Winston Churchill in Vol. 1 of The Second World War. (1948)
Disputed

John Marshall photo
Newton Lee photo
Aristide Maillol photo
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad photo
Rudyard Kipling photo
Francis Escudero photo
George William Curtis photo
Samuel Smiles photo
Enver Hoxha photo

“The sacrifices of our people were very great. Out of a population of one million, 28,000 were killed, 12,600 wounded, 10,000 were made political prisoners in Italy and Germany, and 35,000 made to do forced labour, of ground; all the communications, all the ports, mines and electric power installations were destroyed, our agriculture and livestock were plundered, and our entire national economy was wrecked.”

Enver Hoxha (1908–1985) the Communist leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of L…

Enver Hoxha, Selected Works, 1941–1948, vol. I (Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House, 1974, 599-600)
Writings, Selected Works, 1941–1948

Adam Ferguson photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“It's our right as a sovereign nation to choose immigrants that we think are the likeliest to thrive and flourish and love us.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Immigration speech (31 August 2016), quoted in "Donald Trump delivers immigration speech after meeting with Mexican president" http://fox59.com/2016/08/31/donald-trump-delivers-immigration-speech-after-meeting-with-mexican-president/ by CNN Wire, Fox 59.
2010s, 2016, August

Peter Akinola photo
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo

“National injustice is the surest road to national downfall.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech, Plumstead (30 November 1878)
1870s

Martin Heidegger photo
Douglas MacArthur photo

“I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any potential threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within which, opposed to all of our great traditions, have gravely weakened the structure and tone of our American way of life.”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

Austin, Texas (13 June 1951); as published in General MacArthur Speeches and Reports 1908-1964 https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/1563115891, ed. Edward T. Imparato, Turner Publishing Company (2000), p.175
1950s, Speech to the Texas Legislature

Mohammed VI of Morocco photo

“The situation is a difficult one. Nothing has been definitely settled yet. The manoeuvers plotted by the opponents of our territorial integrity are not about to end. Our cause may have to face other crucial developments. Accordingly, I urge you once again to remain fully mobilized, be vigilant at all times and act efficiently, at both the national and the international levels, to face the enemies of the nation and foil their illegitimate schemes.”

Mohammed VI of Morocco (1963) King of Morocco

Original French:La situation est difficile. Rien n'est encore tranché. Les manœuvres des adversaires de notre intégrité territoriale ne vont pas s'arrêter , ce qui pourrait placer notre cause devant des développements décisifs. Par conséquent, je vous exhorte tous –encore une fois- à une forte mobilisation, une vigilance de tous les instants, et des initiatives efficaces, aux niveaux interne et externe, pour contrecarrer les ennemis de la nation où qu'ils se trouvent, et pour déjouer les stratagèmes illégitimes auxquels ils ont recours.
Speech before the Moroccan lower house of parliament 11 October 2013 http://www.maroc.ma/en/royal-speeches/full-text-hm-kings-speech-opening-first-session-third-legislative-year-ninth

Herman Kahn photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“The relation between the white and colored people of this country is the great, paramount, imperative, and all-commanding question for this age and nation to solve.”

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

Speech at the Church of the Puritans, New York City (May 1863)
1860s

Derryn Hinch photo

“Recently, I was evicted of contempt of court over my online editorial about (bleep). I was sentenced to pay a $100,000 fine, or go to jail for 50 days. I believe this was the highest personal fine ever issued in Australia. Other websites, newspapers, and radio stations were not charged for similar or even more controversial material. Yet the judge attacked me for portraying myself as a scapegoat — a whipping boy — and he punished me accordingly. Now it is true, I have prior convictions. In 1987, I was fined $15,000 and jailed for exposing a paedophile priest Michael Glennon. Glennon had already been to jail for raping a 10-year-old girl, but was still running a camp for kids in country Victoria. And he was still a Catholic priest. He eventually went to jail, and he died behind bars several weeks ago. And to be honest, I feel good about that — he was an evil, evil man. I also spent five months under house arrest in 2011 for breaching court suppression orders, revealing the names of two serial sex offenders at a rally outside Victoria's Parliament House. About 4000 other people also shouted their names. That one cost me my radio job at 3AW. And I was fined and did 250 hours of community service for naming a judge who ruled that a man could not be charged for raping his wife under a 300-year-old British law. In Victoria, that law has since been changed. Now, here we go again. I have made a decision not taken lightly. On principle, I will not pay the $100,000 fine, which was due today. Instead, I'll go to jail. I'll go to jail for 50 days; to draw attention to all the suspended sentences for crimes of violence and child pornography; for the obscenely short sentences given to king hit killers; to draw attention to my campaign for a national register of convicted sex offenders. Already, 30,000 of you have signed up. I'm happy to serve just 50 days of the many years that the convicted paedophile ex-magistrate should be serving. That pervert, Simon Cooper, wasn't even put on the sex offenders register. If my going to jail draws attention to the judges and magistrates, out of touch with community expectations and your safety, then every one of my 50 days behind bars will be worth it. And so I'll go to jail.”

Derryn Hinch (1944) New Zealand–Australian media personality

Today Tonight, 16 January 2014.

William C. Davis photo
Alfred Rosenberg photo

“I have the feeling that this Moscow Pact will at some time or other exact vengeance upon National Socialism.”

Alfred Rosenberg (1893–1946) German architect and politician

Quoted in "The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership" - Page 171 - by Joachim C. Fest - History - 1999.

Margaret Thatcher photo

“Nazism (national Socialism) and communism (international socialism) were but two sides of the same coin.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

The Path To Power (1995)

Warren G. Harding photo

“America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.”

Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) American politician, 29th president of the United States (in office from 1921 to 1923)

Speech in Boston, Massachusetts (24 May 1920); Harding is often thought to have coined the word "normalcy" in this speech, but the word is recorded as early as the 1850s as alternative to "normality".
1920s

George H. W. Bush photo
Hans Ruesch photo
Bell Hooks photo
Nelson Mandela photo
Perry Anderson photo
Hassan Banna photo

“The civilization of the West, which was brilliant by virtue of its scientific perfection for a long time, and which subjugated the whole world with the products of this science to its states and nations, is now bankrupt and in decline.”

Hassan Banna (1906–1949) Egyptian politician

[Five Tracts of Hasan Al-Banna: A Selection from the Majmu at Rasail al-Imam al-Shahid Hasan al-Banna, University of California Press, 106] translated and annotated by Charles Wendell.

Norodom Sihanouk photo
Bill Mollison photo
Leonid Brezhnev photo
Hermann Rauschning photo

“The radical dynamism into which National Socialism has developed is a dangerous, destructive fever, which spreads at an uncanny rate.”

Hermann Rauschning (1887–1982) German politician

Source: The Revolution of Nihilism: Warning to the West (1939), p. 253

E. M. S. Namboodiripad photo
Abbie Hoffman photo

“In Woodstock Nation there are no writers—only poet-warriors.”

Landing a Man on the Earth Without the Help of Norman Mailer
Woodstock Nation (1969)

Richard Nixon photo
Andrei Sakharov photo
Jean-Baptiste Say photo

“But what must be the character of that policy, which aims at national prosperity through the impoverishment of a large proportion of the home producers, with a view to supply foreigners at a cheaper rate, and give them all the benifet of the national privation and self denial?”

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book II, On Distribution, Chapter VII, Section IV, p. 340

“It would be premature to suggest that the nation-state is dead or dying.”

Robert Gilpin (1930–2018) Political scientist

p, 125
War and Change in World Politics (1981)

Noam Chomsky photo
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan photo

“Only a dead nation remembers its heroes when they die. Real nations respect them when they are alive.”

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890–1988) Indian independence activist

Zareef, Adil Saturday, (January 28, 2006) The Demise of a Dream. The Daily Times https://archive.is/20130416144347/www.dailytimes.com.pk/print.asp?page=2006%5C01%5C28%5Cstory_28-1-2006_pg7_35

Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“The fifth and most important principle of our foreign policy is support of national independence—the right of each people to govern themselves—and to shape their own institutions. For a peaceful world order will be possible only when each country walks the way that it has chosen to walk for itself. We follow this principle by encouraging the end of colonial rule. We follow this principle, abroad as well as at home, by continued hostility to the rule of the many by the few—or the oppression of one race by another. We follow this principle by building bridges to Eastern Europe. And I will ask the Congress for authority to remove the special tariff restrictions which are a barrier to increasing trade between the East and the West. The insistent urge toward national independence is the strongest force of today's world in which we live. In Africa and Asia and Latin America it is shattering the designs of those who would subdue others to their ideas or their will. It is eroding the unity of what was once a Stalinist empire. In recent months a number of nations have east out those who would subject them to the ambitions of mainland China. History is on the side of freedom and is on the side of societies shaped from the genius of each people. History does not favor a single system or belief—unless force is used to make it so. That is why it has been necessary for us to defend this basic principle of our policy, to defend it in Berlin, in Korea, in Cuba—and tonight in Vietnam.”

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

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Bill Bryson photo
William Westmoreland photo
Lester B. Pearson photo
Max Born photo
Ron Paul photo
Thomas Jefferson photo
Charles Edward Merriam photo
Robert Ley photo

“The second German secret weapon is anti-Semitism, because if it is consistently pursued by Germany, it will become a universal problem which all nations will be forced to consider.”

Robert Ley (1890–1945) Nazi politician

Quoted in "Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal" - Page 118 - Nuremberg, Germany - 1947

Gary Johnson photo
Gro Harlem Brundtland photo
Scott McClellan photo
Harry Truman photo
Ben Sasse photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Thomas Jefferson photo
John F. Kennedy photo