Nation Quotes

If we take the capsulation of minorities within the nation-state as a given condition, the implication of the Holocaust is that the life and liberties of minorities depend primarily upon whether the dominant group includes them within its universe of obligation; these are the bonds that hold or the bonds that break. ~ Helen Fein

This nation has been through hard times. But those hard times have hardened our resolve. I'm ready to do the difficult work ahead. But I want to do that work with Barack Obama, and not a Tea Party ideologue. We can move America forward, but we can only do it together. ~ Harry Reid

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself. ~ Thomas Carlyle

Any nation that wishes to enjoy the fruits of development and civilization, must follow the golden rules of this scripture as a national policy and culture. ~ Sunday Adelaja

The Bible and its teachings helped form the basis for the Founding Fathers' abiding belief in the inalienable rights of the individual, rights which they found implicit in the Bible's teachings of the inherent worth and dignity of each individual. This same sense of man patterned the convictions of those who framed the English system of law inherited by our own Nation, as well as the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. ~ Ronald Reagan

Why should a great and powerful nation like the United States allow its relationship with more than a billion Muslims around the world to be defined by the narrow hatred and nihilistic actions of an exceptionally small minority of Muslims? ~ John O. Brennan

The aeroplane is an invention of the devil and will never play any part in such a serious business as the defence of the nation, my boy! ~ Sam Hughes

Every Latter-day Saint should love the inspired Constitution of the United States - a nation with a spiritual foundation and a prophetic history - which nation the Lord has declared to be his base of operations in these latter days. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

Given everything we know about the universe it would seem utterly impossible for any sane person to believe that the ultimate truth about the universe and human existence is the story of Israeli, German or Russian nationalism – or indeed of nationalism in general. A story that ignores almost the whole of time, the whole of space, the Big Bang, quantum physics and the evolution of life is at most just a tiny part of the truth. Yet people somehow manage not to see beyond it.
Indeed, billions of people throughout history have believed that for their lives to have meaning, they don't even need to be absorbed into a nation or a great ideological movement. It is enough if they just 'leave something behind', thereby ensuring that their personal story continues beyond their death. The 'something' I leave behind is ideally my soul or my personal essence. If I am reborn in a new body after the death of my present body, then death is not the end. It is merely the space between two chapters, and the plot

"that began in one chapter will carry on into the next. Many people have at least a vague faith in such a theory, even if they do not base it on any specific theology. They don't need an elaborate dogma – they just need the reassuring feeling that their story continues beyond the horizon of death. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation. What's done in private between adults doesn't concern the Criminal Code. ~ Pierre Trudeau

It was mid-November 2008. There were pirates taking ships with impunity in African waters, terrorists punching holes in Indian security, China sinking towards depression because Americans were afraid to buy cheap goods for Christmas, and the richest nation in the history of the world was talking about how to keep a budget. ~ Walter Mosley

Selfless service is the pathway to true greatness. ~ Martin Uzochukwu Ugwu

Cambodians resent outsiders' implications that they are a nation of shell-shocked survivors, but in 2004 news from police stations around the country made it impossible not to notice how many seemingly pedestrian conflicts escalated into stunning violence: the farmer who beheaded his neighbor with a machete in a dispute over a fence; the disgruntled relative who stormed away from an argument at a wedding and returned to douse the guests with battery acid. ~ Corinne Purtill

Our nation is too different, too diverse to say that what works in Massachusetts is somehow going to be grabbed by the federal government, usurping the power of states and imposing a one-size-fits-all plan on the nation. That will not work. ~ Mitt Romney

It is astonishing that gay and lesbian Americans are still treated as second-class citizens. I am confident that, very soon, the laws of this nation will reflect the basic truth that gay and lesbian people - like all human beings - are born equal in dignity and rights. ~ George Clooney

Other animals are exceptionally good at identifying and reacting to predators, rivals and friends. They never act as if they believe that rivers or trees are inhabited by spirits who are watching. In all these ways, other animals continually demonstrate their working knowledge that they live in a world brimming with other minds as well as their knowledge of those minds' boundaries. their understanding seems more acute, pragmatic, and frankly, better than ours at distinguishing real from fake. So, I wonder, do humans really have a better developed Theory of Mind than other animals? ...Children talk to dolls for years, half believing or firmly believing that the doll hears and feels and is a worthy confidante. Many adults pray to statues, fervently believing that they're listening. ...All of this indicates a common human inability to distinguish conscious minds from inanimate objects, and evidence from nonsense. Children often talk to a fully imaginary friends whom they believe listens and has thoughts. Monotheism might be the adult version. ...In the world's most technologically advanced, most informed societies, a majority people take it for granted that disembodied spirits are watching, judging, and acting on them. Most leaders of modern nations trust that a Sky-God can be asked to protect their nation during disasters and conflicts with other nations. All of this is theory of mind gone wild, like an unguided fire hose spraying the whole universe with presumed consciousness. ~ Carl Safina

It is not the dignitaries who are the real cause of hope, however. What is an enormously refreshing and hopeful sign is to see the young people who make up the membership of the Federalist Society. Earnest, intelligent, and unpretentious, these are the young men and women of whom any nation and any age could be proud. ~ Thomas Sowell

Whatever work you do, you think are you doing this for the good of the nation? That's the basic training. The other basic training is discipline. Your life should be disciplined. The other thing they say is what work you get, do it well. ~ Narendra Modi

My shipmates and I only grasped our roles on the very superficial level we were taught. We were fighting the bad guys. They were the bad guys because we were told that they were the bad guys. We had to control, infiltrate, and shove our authority around the world because we were its greatest nation. We had the shiniest ships, the biggest guns, the deadliest weapons, and the cockiest egos. And if we thought otherwise, we were vicious traitors. The military condemns rebels, thinkers, and doubt. The military loves obedience, loyalty, and oblivion. Its core values are, after all, "Honor, Courage, and Commitment. ~ Maggie Young

If you make me your president, I'm going to put the country ahead of the party. I'm going to do what it takes to defend this nation. This nation has been great to me, and that's the only way I know to pay you back. ~ Lindsey Graham

The President must be true to his word. He must keep his faith with the folks who elected him twice. In other words, he must replace Sandra Day O'Connor with a strict constructionist. The president has a God-given opportunity to change the balance on the Supreme Court. On issue after issue - abortion, sodomy, public display of the Ten Commandments - O'Connor has sided with the court's liberal bloc. Time and again, Justice O'Connor and her colleagues have used the Constitution as an excuse to force weird social experiments on the nation. ~ Rick Scarborough

We waste an awful lot of energy as a Nation through inefficient use of energy. ~ Chris Van Hollen

It is in many circumstances a troubling thing to belong to the advanced class of a backward nation. One surrenders coherence and begins a difficult process of choice which ends, often, in an eclectic idiosyncrasy. ~ George W. S. Trow

Christians must be extremely vigilant against the ongoing temptations of idolatrous nationalism. Christians in the United States are especially prone to embrace this evil, but the temptation lurks in every nation. ~ Ronald J. Sider

Clearly our current form of medicine will bankrupt us and simultaneously keep the chemical industry the number one money-maker as physicians nurture a nation of drugged zombies. ~ Sherry Rogers

Women are the field that produces our nation. And if you can't protect your women, you can't protect your nation. ~ Muhammad Ali

Any country that enjoys fighting and bitching as a recreation as much as America does will always be, in some way or another, walking along a knife's edge. We're a nation that spends its afternoons watching white trash throw chairs at each other on Jerry Springer, its drive time listening to the partisan rantings of this or that hysterical political demagogue, and its late-night hours composing feverish blog entries full of anonymous screeds and denunciations. All of this shit is harmless enough so long as the power comes on every morning, fresh milk makes it to the shelves, there's a dial tone, and your front yard isn't underwater. But it becomes a problem when the magic grid goes down and suddenly there's no more machinery between you and whomever you happen to get off on hating. ~ Matt Taibbi

As a nation, we are on a path of rapid and deep systemic change to our health system, and it's going to unfold for some time to come. It is already transforming the fundamental nature of the U.S. medical care delivery system. ~ John E. McDonough

Our nation and those of the developed world must offer our own resistance to despot leaders who seek to commit murder on the basis of religion or race. ~ Tim Bishop

No nation deserves freedom or can long retain it which does not win it for itself. Revolutions must be made by the people and for the people. ~ Giuseppe Mazzini

If 600,000 people have to die in order for the nation to live, then 600,000 people will die. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Money has, as we know, no value in itself. It is a convenient yardstick for a large number of material values. But the health and life of an individual as well as the health of a nation cannot be measured by that yardstick. If we, entrusted with protecting and defending the health of the population, give in to a salesman's scale of values we are lost. ~ Karl Evang

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries you have these great nation states hurling their young men at one another. The victory was really going to rest on who could do the best job of bringing up their kids to become efficient and effective soldiers. That's pretty grandiose, I guess, but I do think that, and thank God it's been the armies of democracy that have emerged from this as the triumphant armies. ~ Stephen Ambrose

If Germany won it would change the course of our civilization and make the United States a military nation [and] it would check his policy for a better international ethical code ~ Woodrow Wilson

Like Nemesis of Greek tragedy, the central problem of America after the Civil War, as before, was the black man: those four million souls whom the nation had used and degraded, and on whom the South had built an oligarchy similar to the colonial imperialism of today, erected on cheap colored labor and raising raw material for manufacture. ~ W.E.B. Du Bois

The woman is the fiber of the nation. She is the producer of life. A nation is only as good as its women. ~ Muhammad Ali

in view of the law of natural selection it was agreed that a nation or world of people who will not use their intelligence are no better than animals who do not have intelligence. Such people are beasts of burden and steaks on the table by choice and consent. ~ Milton William Cooper

How can you hope to build up a nation by fragmenting its politics into opposing camps? Whatever one group builds, the other will endeavour to destroy. ~ Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

When the destiny of a nation is in a woman's bedroom, the best place for the historian is in the antechamber. - CHARLES-AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE ~ Eleanor Herman

Well, the Romanies have been around for five thousand years, longer than any nation. And why? Because we know how to survive. The Aryans tried to kill us, the Persians, the Tatars, the Magyars, the Africans, the Germans, everybody. But we stay together, and we move on, and we keep one thing in mind, to survive, and that is our greatest secret. ~ Martin Cruz Smith

If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That's not gallons, but barrels. Small changes in buying habits can make big differences. Becoming a less energy-dependent nation may just need to start with a good breakfast. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

FACE THE NATION is the second oldest program on television. It began in 1954, fifty-eight years ago. I've been here at the table for the last twenty-one. ~ Rodney Erickson

If we desire a kinder nation, seeing it through the eyes of children is an eminently sensible endeavor: A city that is pro-child,for example, is also a more humane place for adults. ~ Richard Louv

Believing that war is contrary to the will of God and to common sense, and feeling that the way of peace is the way of love, I shall work for peace by using the way of love myself, by helping any group I am part of to use it, by helping the nation of which I am a citizen to use it, by helping the United Nations to use it, and by praying that the way of love be used all over the world. ~ Peace Pilgrim

My need to parent is so much bigger, sometimes, than my children's need for parenting. ~ Margot Page

Our top focus - protecting our Nation - must go beyond homeland preparedness; America will only be secure if we deal with threats before they happen, not just after they happen. ~ Bill Frist

Alongside the viciousness of much of German politics in the Weimar years was an incongruous innocence: few people could imagine the worst possibilities. A civilized nation could not possibly vote for Hitler, some had thought. When he became chancellor nonetheless, millions expected his time in office to be short and ineffectual. Germany was a notoriously law-abiding as well as cultured land. How could a German government systematically brutalize its own people? German Jews were highly assimilated and patriotic. Many refused to leave their homeland, even as things got worse and worse. "I am German and am waiting for the Germans to come back; they have gone to ground somewhere," Victor Klemperer wrote in his diary--he was the son of a rabbi and a veteran of the First World War who chose to stay, and miraculously survived.

Few Germans in 1933 could imagine Treblinka or Auschwitz, the mass shootings of Babi Yar or the death marches of the last months of the Second World War. It is hard to blame them for not foreseeing the unthinkable. Yet their innocence failed them, and they were catastrophically wrong about their future. We who come later have one advantage over them: we have their example before us. ~ Benjamin Carter Hett

If their social institutions were abhorrent, their unwritten constitution bordered upon the absurd. The absolutist monarchs of the ancient kingdoms of Amara looked with detestation at the Shazarian constitutional monarchy. Yet this was no time to demonstrate loathing of the upstart nation; condescension could wait until after Sixto had been defeated. ~ A.H. Septimius

But just as haste and restlessness are typical of our present-day life, so change also takes place more rapidly than before. This applies to change in the relationships between nations as it does to change within an individual nation. ~ Gustav Stresemann

We may scavenge the dross of the nation, we may shudder past bloody sod,
But we thrill to the new revelation that we are parts of God. ~ Robert Haven Schauffler

Success is created in studio apartments and garages, at kitchen tables, and in classrooms across the nation, not in government conference rooms in Washington. ~ Tim Scott

Never should the power of an individual be allowed to impede the progress of the rest of the nation; never should the power of a nation be allowed to impede the progress of mankind. ~ Leon Bourgeois

We must surely appear to the world as exactly what we are: a nation that organizes its economy around consuming twice as much oil as it produces, and around the profligate wastefulness of the wars and campaigns required to defend such consumption. In recent years we have defined our national interest largely in terms of the oil fields and pipelines we need to procure fuel. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Homesickness is just a state of mind for me. i'm always missing someone or someplace or something, i'm always trying to get back to some imaginary somewhere. my life has been one long longing. ~ Elizabeth Wurtzel

When you use force, people get hurt, and when you kill people, their relatives don't like it. And usually war has some unanticipated consequences so it's something you shouldn't launch into, on the expectation that this is going to rally the nation. This is not like 'Friday Night Lights'. ~ Wesley Clark

A love of tradition has never weakened a nation ... ~ Winston Churchill

Most people don't realize that since the time of Apollo we've been in a feedback loop: as a nation, we elect representatives who thwart NASA, and then we blame NASA for its lack of vision. ~ Margaret Lazarus Dean

The nation can no longer afford to continue policies that hasten the flight of persons to the distant suburbs. ~ Jane Byrne

Ours is a nation that does not seek revenge. ~ George W. Bush

The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort. ~ Plato

My connection was we never want to put ourselves in a position as a nation where we pit group against group. ~ Kenneth Langone

At some point, while you were roaming the globe, making treaties and dividing the spoils of war, I quietly declared my own independence. I am the sovereign nation of Clio now. And there will be no terms of surrender. ~ Tessa Dare

During the rule of the Shah, arrogance, aggression, territorial expansion at the expense of the Arabs and attempts to harm Iraq's national sovereignty and the rights of the Arab nation were a constant pattern. Iraq and the Arab nation were regarded as a sphere of influence for the expansionist plans of Iranian interests. That policy has been followed throughout history by the State of Persia against its neighbours to the west, and as we have shown. ~ Saddam Hussein

One less desirable aspect of democracy is that it seems to require serious demonization of the enemy if the nation and public opinion are to be galvanized sufficiently to pay a serious price in blood or treasure at war. ~ Graham E. Fuller

The famous speech Martin Luther King Jr. delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, included the sentence: "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character". Today's left-wing, through identity politics, affirmative-action policies, and hiring quotas, has shattered that dream. ~ Tammy Bruce

Each nation has a theme: everything else is secondary. India's theme is religion. ~ Swami Vivekananda

We are a Nation Under God. If we ever forget this, we are a nation gone UNDER. ~ Ronald Reagan

The Seductive Lure of Socialism Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation. This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat again: These two uses of the law are in direct contradiction to each other. We must choose between them. A citizen cannot at the same time be free and not free. ~ Frederic Bastiat

This papal document - which has not yet been repudiated by the Catholic Church - was the basis for the Christian justification of colonialism and the building of competitive Spanish, Portuguese, British, Dutch, French, Belgian, German, and other Euro-Christian empires that spanned the world.13 It was the genocide card that was given to every white Christian nation. ~ Brian D. McLaren

Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of people that these liberties are the gift of God? ~ Thomas Jefferson

By the time I had finished my coffee and returned to the streets, the rain had temporarily abated, but the streets were full of vast puddles where the drains where unable to cope with the volume of water. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you would think that if one nation ought by now to have mastered the science of drainage, Britain would be it. ~ Bill Bryson

Nuclear energy is the scientific achievement of the Iranian nation. ~ Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

To exist as a nation, to prosper as a state, and to live as a people, we must have trees. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The Government of the Reich, who regard Christianity as the unshakable foundation of the morals and moral code of the nation, attach the greatest value to friendly relations with the Holy See and are endeavouring to develop them. ~ Adolf Hitler

It is not blood that makes you Irish but a willingness to be part of the Irish Nation. ~ Thomas Davis

America is particularly boastful of her great power, her enormous national wealth. Poor America, of what avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly poor? If they live in squalor, in filth, in crime, with hope and joy gone, a homeless, soilless army of human prey. ~ Emma Goldman

In a composite Nation like ours, made up of almost every variety of the human family, there should be, as before the Law, no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no black, no white, but one country, one citizenship equal rights and a common destiny for all.
A government that cannot or does not protect the humblest citizen in his right to life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, should be reformed or overthrown, without delay. ~ Frederick Douglass

For example, the citizens will live out the value of diligence in their enterprises. They will live out the value of prudence in their finances. They will live out the value of industry in the economy. They will live out the value of love in their neighbourhood. They will live out the value of dignity of labour in the market place, etc. All these will go a long way into propelling both the economy and political life of a nation to the greatest height possible. ~ Sunday Adelaja

One's identity derives not from one's nation or blood but from the language one uses. ~ Minae Mizumura

We need efforts to integrate the nation, not divide it. The 2014 elections is about voting for India. It is to decide what kind of India we want to create. So Vote for India. Neither for a person, nor for a party, let us Vote for India. ~ Narendra Modi

America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle," he said. "We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world. ~ George W. Bush

At the very time that philosophers of the most enterprising benevolence were founding in Greece those institutions which have rendered it the wonder and luminary of the world, am I required to believe that the weak and wicked king of an obscure and barbarous nation, a murderer, a traitor and a tyrant, was the man after God's own heart? ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

The artist labors while he may, But finds at best too brief the day; And, tho' his works outlast the time And nation that they make sublime, He feels and sees that Nature knows Nothing of time in what she does, But has a leisure infinite Wherein to do her work aright. ~ Henry Abbey

I am a most unhappy man. I accidentally ruined my country. A great industrial nation is now controlled by its system of credit. Our government is no longer based on the freedom of opinion, nor on the conviction and the majority decision, it is now a government which is subjected to the conviction and the compulsion of a small group of dominant men. ~ Woodrow Wilson

Turkey has never been colonized, so it remained as an independent nation after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. ~ Mustafa Akyol

Whoever knows the ways of God can also do the works of God, and lead a nation, manifesting the miracles and signs of God ~ Sunday Adelaja

The value of love will always be stronger than the value of hate. Any nation or group of nations which employs hatred eventually is torn to pieces by hatred ... ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love. ~ Red Cloud

Americans need a fresh reminder of the amazing nation they have and the power of liberties I see so often taken for granted. ~ Ali Master

My grandfather asked whether the country had "come to the point in our life as a nation where the Governor of a great state - one who perhaps aspires to the nomination for President of the United States - can desert a good wife, [the] mother of his grown children, divorce her, then persuade a young mother of four youngsters to abandon her husband and their four children and marry the Governor." Clearly Prescott Bush was not afraid to express his beliefs. I can only imagine what he would say if he saw what our society looks like today. ~ George W. Bush

Charles had climbed on a bench and was calling out that he had something to say, creating a racket that quickly got the attention of the room. Everyone looked immensely surprised, including Tessa and Will. Sona frowned, clearly thinking Charles was very rude. She didn't know the half of it, Cordelia thought darkly.
"Let me be the first to raise a glass to the happy couple!" said Charles, doing just that. "To James Herondale and Cordelia Carstairs. I wish to add personally that James, my brother's parabatai, has always been like a younger brother to me."
"A younger brother he accused of vandalizing greenhouses across our fair nation," muttered Will.
"As for Cordelia Carstairs - how to describe her?" Charles went on.
"Especially when one has not bothered to get to know her at all," murmured James.
"She is both beautiful and fair," said Charles, leaving Cordelia to wonder what the difference was, "as well as being brave. I am sure she will make James as happy as my lovely Grace makes me." He smiled at Grace, who stood quietly near him, her face a mask. "That's right. I am formally announcing my intention to wed Grace Blackthorn. You will all be invited, of course."
Cordelia glanced over at Alastair; he was expressionless, but his hands, jammed into his pockets, were fists. James had narrowed his eyes.
Charles went on merrily. "And lastly, my thanks go out to the folk of the Enclave, who supported my actions as acting Consul through our recent t ~ Cassandra Clare

When greed is enthroned, be it in a community or nation, ungodliness is celebrated at the altar of human pleasure. ~ Sunday Adelaja

The attack on Americans in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 is a stark reminder that our nation must remain vigilant in protecting our citizens from the threat of Al-Qaeda and similar extremist terrorist entities around the world. ~ Bob Corker

Affirming belief that America is an exceptional nation has become a test of patriotism in American politics. ~ Michael Ignatieff

The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate of our great-grandfather, Uthman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We use the minorities of the North as willing tools and the South as a conquered territory and never allow them to rule over us, and never allow them to have control over their future. ~ Ahmadu Bello

He's a family man and a businessman. He spent his career building successful companies. Then, he saved the 2002 Olympics and brought pride to our nation. As governor, he balanced the budget, cut taxes, and created jobs. The president America needs is Mitt Romney! ~ Reince Priebus

Constructive trade, the two-way exchange of goods and services, is the most efficient and logical way for each nation ... to build a stable prosperity, a prosperity based not on aid, but on mutually beneficial economic contacts. ~ Ronald Reagan

The divine right of kings may have been a plea for feeble tyrants, but the divine right of government is the keystone of human progress, and without it governments sink into police, and a nation is degraded into a mob. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

A smile or a tear has not nationality; joy and sorrow speak alike to all nations, and they, above all the confusion of tongues, proclaim the brotherhood of man ~ Frederick Douglass

Put down your guns and go home. Let's rebuild the nation together. This was President Lincoln's vision, to which Grant subscribed. ~ Bill O'Reilly