Nation Birth Quotes

[T]he great American statesman devotes his energy, ability, and wisdom to conforming himself and this people to the moral principles that gave this nation birth, are older than anything else in the country's soul, and yet retain the power to make us young again with the vigor of virtue and the zeal for justice. ~ Alan Keyes

The enemies of liberty and our country should make no mistake: America remains engaged in the world by history and by choice, shaping a balance of power that favors freedom. We will defend our allies and our interests. We will show purpose without arrogance. We will meet aggression and bad faith with resolve and strength. And to all nations, we will speak for the values that gave our nation birth ... an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm. ~ George W. Bush

The press and the pulpit have in every age and every nation been on the side of the exploiting class and the ruling class. ~ Eugene V. Debs

Every GOP administration since 1952 has let the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the nation into debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

The Polish freedom movement of 1968 lost its confrontation with police violence; the Prague Spring was crushed by the armies of five Warsaw Pact members. But in both countries, 1968 gave birth to a new political consciousness. ~ Adam Michnik

It's thrilling. There's birth and death and frustration and victory in raising horses. It's like a little microcosm of life is built into the short lives of these creatures. ~ John Phillips

I remember first learning about death quite vividly.

I'm not sure how old I was, but I remember the conversation like it was yesterday. My grandfather had died, and my mother was trying to explain it to me.

'Sometimes, when someone gets ill, and they're very very old, they don't get better again. They just get iller and iller and then... then their body stops working.'

'I don't understand.'

'What's in them just goes away, and doesn't come back.'

'Grandpa isn't coming back?'

'No,' she said. 'Not ever again.'

'Grandpa said he was going away and not ever coming back after he held Grandma's head in that cotton-dump outside of town and kicked Skeeter seventy-three times.'

'Grandpa was very drunk. That's not the same as being dead. Grandpa's dead, son. He's not there anymore.'

And I remember saying, 'Hold everything right fucking THERE.

'You went to all the trouble of conceiving me, and giving birth to me, and raising me and feeding me and clothing me and all-- and, YEAH, whipping me from time to time, and making me live in a house that's freezing fucking cold all the goddamn time-- and you make me cry and things hurt so much and disappointments crush my heart every day and I can't do half the things I want to do and sometimes I just want to scream-- and what I've got to look forward to is my body breaking and something flipping off the switch in my head-- I go through all ~ Warren Ellis

In enjoyment is the fear of disease, In high birth, the fear of losing caste, In wealth, the fear of tyrants, In honour, the fear of losing it, In strength, the fear of enemies, In beauty, the fear of old age, In knowledge, the fear of defeat, In virtue, the fear of scandal, In the body, the fear of death. In this life all is fraught with fear: Renunciation alone is fearless. ~ Swami Vivekananda

While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith, our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thing - good for our political culture. ~ Jon Meacham

Witch-hunting misogyny is fiercely recurrent in this nation, even if its forms vary with the ages. ~ Patricia J. Williams

We must recognize that every nation determines its policies in terms of its own interests. ~ John F. Kennedy

Margaret Sanger didn't just introduce the idea of birth control into our culture at large, she freed women from indenture to their bodies. ~ Roxane Gay

You simply cannot continue a nation as America without that Christian base of liberty. ~ Dan Severson

don't fast, I will never go on any pilgrimage, and I drink wine - and what's more, the air that makes it better. To cry out that I'm free, and that God is a question, not an answer, and that I want to meet him alone, at my death as at my birth. ~ Kamel Daoud

The clever use of media (i.e., TV political ads, image creations and management) kept us from raising or even addressing major problems we face as a nation - our identity, our values, our role as a resource for peace rather than war, for justice rather than its miscarriages, for people rather than corporations, for decency rather than humiliation, and for democracy rather than "hypocracy." Martin Luther King, Jr., stated it well: A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just. . . . ~ Anthony J. Marsella

The children were pining for their father. They were dreaming about him. Though she had brought them up like they were her very life, though they knew nothing about their father, though their father did not even know about their birth or growing up - they wanted him. Sons needed to grow up inheriting their father's name.
She was Janaki - daughter of Mother Earth. Yet, she became Janaki - daughter of Janaka - under his care. These boys would get recognition only when they were regarded as Rama's offspring. Rama was Dasarathi - 'of Dasaratha' - he was fond of that name, revered it and took pride in it. These children too wanted that kind of acknowledgement. It was indeed the order of the world.
But would that happen? Would Rama embrace these children? Would he give them his name? Would he acknowledge them as descendants of his family? If that did not happen, how these innocent hearts would grieve!
If Rama accepted them as his children and took them to Ayodhya, what would happen to her?
She had left her father who loved her like his own life and taken Rama's hand.
Rama, whom she loved like her own life, had let go of her hand.
These children whom she had brought up, caring for them like her own life - would she be able to hold on to them? Should she even attempt to do that? Would they remain in her grasp even if she did? Would they not run to their father if he called them?
What did she have, other than the disgrace that Rama, bowing to public ~ Volga

She had given birth to me and nursed me and brought me up. She had known me before I knew myself and now she had no say in the matter. Life started out one thing and then suddenly turned a corner and became something else. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

Since the birth of modern Orthodox Judaism in 19th-century Germany, a central goal of the movement has been to normalize the observance of traditional Jewish law - to make it possible to follow all 613 biblical commandments assiduously while still participating in the reality of the modern world. ~ Noah Feldman

A nation must be embraced, rehabilitated and expressed as a tangible sign of human creativity and as an integral element of mankind's heritage. ~ Abdelaziz Bouteflika

There is no question that America has been a nation that has been blessed by almighty God. There is no other nation in the history of mankind that has done what His nation has done - and it's because of God's hand and His blessing. ~ Franklin Graham

When a theological world view dominated, deviance was sin; when the nation-states emerged from the decay of feudalism, most deviance became designated as crime; and in our own scientifically oriented world, various forms of deviance are designated increasingly as medical problems. Thus we view the medical paradigm as the ascending paradigm for deviance designations in our postindustrial society. ~ Peter Conrad

We were putting into these gomers our fear of death, but who knew if they feared death? Perhaps they welcomed death like a dear long-lost cousin, grown old but still known, coming to visit, relieving the loneliness, the failing of the senses, the fury of the half-blind looking into the mirror and not recognizing who is looking back, a dear friend, a dear reliever, a healer who would be with them for an eternity, the same eternity as the long ago, before birth. ~ Samuel Shem

We Democrats still have a dream. We still believe in this nation's future. ~ Mario Cuomo

Without volunteers, we'd be a nation without a soul. ~ Rosalynn Carter

We had a meeting where we were supposed to learn how to respond to jerks who ask things like "When did you know you were adopted?" Most people picture a scene where the parents sit you down and you "find out who you are." I didn't need that meeting to know how to answer, because all I had to do was look in the mirror. When people ask me that question, I always say, "When did you find out you weren't adopted? How do you know your mother is your birth mother? ~ Lisa See

In the wiretapping, despite all the momentum for a more assertive Congress, you're seeing Congress backing down, because there are many Republicans and even Democrats who are afraid of being seen as preventing the president from protecting the nation. ~ Bill Vaughan

The nation has been turned upside down and inside out. The country that was once discovered by people seeking religious freedom is now oppressing religious rights. It has been a slow train rumbling down the track of destruction since the 1960's. It started with the removal of the Bible from our public schools. Next the generation known as the 'love generation' opened the door for the approval of sex outside of marriage. For every ten years since then, it's been a slippery slope of materialism, I got mine, what can you do for me, and money is power.
We as a nation have stopped focusing on God and family and replaced them with money and success. Parents are teaching their children to do whatever it takes to get ahead ... just don't get caught. If you do, find someone to blame it on. ~ Rick Mayhew

So when people tell you, oh, you can't have the Ten Commandments on public property, they're just wrong. It's historically false. It's not true. Now, you can decide to invent a new America in which you shouldn't say "one nation under God" as part of the pledge because, after all, you will offend three atheists. But that's not the America you inherited. That's a different country. And I think it's a weaker country and I think it's a country that has no roots in terms of where its rights come from. ~ Newt Gingrich

He is likely to remain the one historian of the Sierra; he imported into his view the imagination of the poet and the reverence of the worshipper ... William Kent, during Muir's life, paid him a rare tribute in giving to the nation a park of redwoods with the understanding that it should be named Muir Woods. But the nation owes him more. His work was not sectional but for the whole people, for he was the real father of the forest reservations of America. ~ Robert Underwood Johnson

China, slavishly dedicated to ancient scholars, incapable of generating within herself sufficient rulers to continue, without bloodshed, a nation. ~ L. Ron Hubbard

Liar! You've been searching high and low for something – anything! – to latch onto! Something to redeem me, make me less of a monster in your eyes. Something to make this pesky attraction you have for me acceptable. But you can't find it, Nation." He leans into her, whispers, "Because I am a monster. ~ M.P. Attardo

The beauty of America is that I don't have to deny my past to affirm my present. No one does. We can love this nation like a parent and still embrace our ancestral home like cherished grandparents. ~ Mario Cuomo

No society of nations, no people within a nation, no family can benefit through mutual aid unless good will exceeds ill will; unless the spirit of cooperation surpasses antagonism; unless we all see and act as though the other man's welfare determines our own welfare. ~ Henry Ford II

Anger met with anger only increases enmity rather than diffusing a tense situation. Anger, in turn, gives birth to hate. In such cases the wisest thing to do is not to engage through emotion. Emotions are self-centered and denying them spares animosity. ~ Donna Lynn Hope

And to all those who have wondered if Americas beacon still burns as bright - tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.
For that is the true genius of America - that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow. ~ Barack Obama

The traditional harmlessness and refusal to take life in
any form has nation-shaking implications. The practice of meditation, for which one needs only "the ground beneath one's feet," wipes out mountains of junk being pumped into the mind by the mass media and supermarket universities. ~ Gary Snyder

Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great nation easily assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God's work. ~ J. William Fulbright

The coarsest father gains a new impulse to labor from the moment of his baby's birth; he scarcely sees it when awake, and yet it is with him all the time. Every stroke he strikes is for his child. New social aims, new moral motives, come vaguely up to him. ~ Thomas Wentworth Higginson