National Anthem Quotes

(Imitating a Belarus citizen commenting on their national flag) Stupid National Anthem ... Look at this flag; Two bears fighting over a pineapple. What kind of message does that send to the world? Come to Belarus, where wild animals will steal your fruit ~ Bill Bailey

Here is a rewriting of the British national anthem, by 'Camille, Australia'. It is, she explains, chiefly for the benefit of Microsoft Word and Outlook Express users:

Gd CTRL-S r gr8sh Qun.
Long liv r nobl Qun.
Gd CTRL-S the. Qun!
ALT-S hr vktrES,
HpE & glrES,
Lng 2 rain ovR S
Gd CTRL-S th. Qun! ~ David Crystal

No matter what. Wherever your mind wanders, it seems to turn up at the same Field of Dreams. It's the vision you wake up with in the morning, and it's the last thing you picture before you fall asleep. Everytime you think of it, the idea in your head seems to get more vivid, filled in with more detail: You not only want to win a gold medal at the Olympics, you not only can see yourself standing there on the podium, but you can also feel the goose bumps as your national anthem is played; the tears are in your eyes. (That's how real a dream can be and should be) ~ James C. Collins

The Anarchists' [national] anthem is an international anthem that consists of 365 raspberries blown in very quick succession to the tune of Camptown Races. Nobody has to stand up for it, nobody has to listen to it, and, even better, nobody has to play it. ~ Mike Harding

I've never been more nervous in my life than singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl. ~ Kelly Clarkson

The only way you can check Gretzky is to hit him when he is standing still singing the national anthem. ~ Harry Sinden

I like traditions, and the national anthem is important. ~ Kate Mara

New England clam chowder, made as it should be, is a dish to preach about, to chant praises and sing hymns and burn incense before. [ ... ] It is as American as the Stars and Stripes, as patriotic as the national Anthem. It is Yankee Doodle in a kettle. ~ Joseph C. Lincoln

Heartbreak is the national anthem. We sing it proudly. ~ Taylor Swift

[A] world in which it is wrong to murder an individual civilian and right to drop a thousand tons of high explosive on a residential area does sometimes make me wonder whether this earth of ours is not a loony bin made use of by some other planet. Not to have a national anthem would be logical. ~ George Orwell

Her vagina could offer shiatsu massage and whistle the national anthem - it's still not worth marrying her to get a piece of it. ~ Leisa Rayven

In the newspapers I read a biography about an American. He left his whole huge fortune to factories and for the positive sciences, his skeleton to the students at the academy there, and his skin to make a drum so as to have the American national anthem drummed on it day and night. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

The white cracker who wrote the National Anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word "free" to a note so high nobody could reach it. That was deliberate. ~ Tony Kushner

...The conversation had become unreal since Christianity had entered it. Ronny approved of religion as long as it endorsed the National Anthem, but he objected when it attempted to influence his life. ~ E. M. Forster

Have you ever heard the Hungarian national anthem? No? Good for you! I wouldn't recommend it at all. Unless you are looking for inspiration for your suicide attempt. If it is not just an attempt but you are deadly serious about your suicide then I strongly recommend you not only read the lyrics but listen to the music too. The most mournful funeral song sounds jolly compared to it. Other nations have inspiring anthems like 'God Save the Queen' or the 'La Marseillaise' or 'The StarSpangled Banner', and their lyrics are about victory and proudness like 'Russia – our sacred homeland, Russia – our beloved country' or 'Germany, Germany above everything, Above everything in the world!' But what about the Hungarian anthem? It starts with 'O Lord, bless the Hungarian' and then follow eight long and painful stanzas about our 'slave yoke' and 'funeral urn' and 'the corpses of our defeated army' and 'groans of death, weeping' and finally it finishes with 'Pity, O Lord, the Hungarians they who have suffered for all sins of the past and of the future!' Yes, of the future too. ~ Angela Kiss

Jimi, a red scarf around his head and wearing a white fringed and beaded leather shirt, looked almost like a mystical holy man in meditation. His eyes closed, his head back, he'd merged with his music, his Strat--played upside down since he's a lefty--his magic wand. Though he was surrounded by his band, he projected the feeling he was all alone.

...

Tom Law of the Hog Farm (on Jimi's rendition of the national anthem): I felt like he was the defining poet of the festival with that piece of music. It was like taking you right into the heart of the beast and nailing it. ~ Uwe Michael Lang

I shook my head. "Go on, swear it!"
"I swear by my life!" cried Aunt Maddy happily.
"I swear," murmured the others, rather embarrassed. Nick began giggling nervously, because Aunt Maddy had begum humming the national anthem to show what a solemn occasion it was. ~ Kerstin Gier

Mitt Romney's rally in Mansfield, Ohio, on Monday began the way every political event begins. 'Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and our country's national anthem.' This is always an uncomfortable moment for me. While I sat at my laptop, most of the reporters around me stood and put their hands over their hearts. This time instead of just sitting and working, I tweeted what I was feeling: 'Ari_Shapiro: As a reporter I'm torn about joining in the pledge of allegiance/national anthem at rallies. I'm a rally observer, not a participant.' ~ Ari Shapiro

Talking frankly about race may make white people uncomfortable. Taking a stand to demonstrate the impact of race on law enforcement is difficult. Look what happened when a National Football League star, protesting discrimination, decided to kneel during the national anthem. Some understood the protest and the right to peacefully demonstrate pursuant to the First Amendment to our Constitution. Others have used the protest to divide us further and rally the white supremacist elements of their constituency. Yes, I am speaking to you, Mr. President, the principal antagonist of racial harmony. ~ Mark M. Bello

The traditions of a nation are very important and the anthem written by Francis Scott Key in the early days of our nation should always be revered. ~ Lee Greenwood

I hate America. I hate this country. It's just big ideas, and stories, and people dying, and people like you. The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word 'free' to a note so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing on earth sounds less like freedom to me. You come to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean. I live in America, that's hard enough, I don't have to love it. You do that. Everybody's got to love something. ~ Tony Kushner

At the beginning of the World Series of 1947, I experienced a completely new emotion when the National Anthem was played. This time, I thought, it is being played for me, as much as for anyone else. ~ Jackie Robinson

too. -In the Jets Super Bowl III win over the Colts, Matt Snell would put together the first 100 yard rushing game in Super Bowl history when he carried the ball 30 times for 121 yards and a touchdown. -Singer Aaron Neville was the first person to sing the national anthem at two different Super Bowls. He first did it at Super Bowl XXIV in New Orleans and then did it again at Super Bowl XL in Detroit. -Quarterback Joe Namath won the MVP Award of Super Bowl III without even throwing a touchdown pass. -At one point in Super Bowl XLI the Colts called eight straight rushing plays and all of them were hand offs to running back Dominic Rhodes. --Cowboys running back Duane Thomas was the ~ Mark Peters

The honest preachers had energy and go. They
fought the devil, no holds barred, boots and eye-gouging permitted. You might get the idea that they howled truth and beauty the way a seal bites out the National Anthem on a row of circus horns. But some of the truth and beauty remained, and the anthem was recognizable. ~ John Steinbeck

The Olympic Gold medal in 1968 was definitely the highest moment of my career. It was a dream come true. I was a 19-year-old boy, and it was just amazing to be standing on top of the podium and hearing the National Anthem in the background. ~ George Foreman

The most scared I'd ever been was the first time I sang at a rugby match, Australia versus New Zealand, in front of one hundred thousand people. I had a panic attack the night before because people have been booed off and never worked again ... just singing one song, the national anthem. ~ Hugh Jackman

You stand in a dark room and grow a tree in your chest.
The color pink is your national anthem.
You have fled the burning city, but your pocket smolders.
He bats his eyelids and dust flies.
You are a well trying to quench its own thirst,
a tiger licking its bloody paw. ~ Karen Finneyfrock

Small acts of persuasion matter, because there is much less distance between people's beliefs than we often suppose. We easily confuse the distance between people's political positions with the intensity of their convictions about them. It is entirely possible for people to become sharply divided, even hostile, , over relatively minor disagreements. Americans have fought epic political battles over things like baking wedding cakes and kneeling during the national anthem. And we once fought a shooting war over a whiskey tax of ten cents per gallon. The ferocity of these battles has nothing to do with the actual distance between different positions, which, when compared to the entire range of opinions possible in the world, is almost negligible.

None of this means that we can persuade our opponents easily. Persuading people to change their minds is excruciatingly difficult. It doesn't always work, and it rarely works the way we think it will. But it does work, and the fact that it works makes it possible for us to have a democracy. ~ Michael Austin

Bobby Orr was a star when they played the National Anthem in his first game. ~ Harry Sinden

'Spectrum' is in part a disco song. But we play it hard, and it's a real euphoric, wailing tune. It's kind of like a total house anthem, in a way, but it seems to be going down really well. We've got all the grunge kids going mad for disco house raves. ~ Florence Welch

If America is destroyed, it may be by Americans who salute the flag, sing the national anthem, march in patriotic parades, cheer Fourth of July speakers - normally good Americans, but Americans who fail to comprehend what is required to keep our country strong and free, Americans who have been lulled away into a false security. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

It is considered in the Sto Plains that only scoundrels know the second verse of their national anthem, since anyone spending time memorizing that would be up to no good purpose. ~ Terry Pratchett

Some write that I'm a genius, others say that I'm disrespectful towards their country ... If you remember in 1993 I squatted to tie my shoe during the French national anthem. ~ Hristo Stoichkov

When the morning skies grow red And o'er us their radiance shed, Thou, O Lord, appeareth in their light. When the Alps glow bright with splendor, Pray to God, to Him surrender, For you feel and understand, For you feel and understand, That he dwelleth in this land. That he dwelleth in this land. - FIRST VERSE OF THE "SCHWEIZERPSALM," THE SWISS NATIONAL ANTHEM ~ Jill Alexander Essbaum

I sang the National Anthem at Dodger Stadium - at a baseball game - which was crazy; there was, like, 60,000 people there, which is a huge deal in America - singing the National Anthem. ~ Adam DeVine

And, you know, being able to wear the stars and stripes, when you step up on one of the blocks or, you know, when you step off of an airplane or when you hear the national anthem play, you know, it's one of the greatest feelings in the world because you know that there are people at home who are supporting you and watching you. ~ Michael Phelps

When I first heard the song Don't worry - be happy I realized it was exactly the kind of mindless philosophy that Americans would respond to. It would make a great national anthem along with Me first. ~ George Carlin

The closest thing to Roseanne Barr's singing the national anthem was my cat being neutered. ~ Johnny Carson

I had lots of breaks. I guess the one that got my foot in the door was singing the National Anthem at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City in '74. ~ Reba McEntire

Seriously. What was with British people? They didn't hug, and they sang their national anthem as if they ruled the world, which in fact was actually quite the opposite of true. ~ Rachel Van Dyken

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. It's actually because the national anthem is boring. ~ Billy Connolly

Just the usual formality before the chaos begins. Like playing the National Anthem before a Cubs game. ~ Berkeley Breathed

I think as a Canadian hockey player, you go through it in your mind so many times, being able to stand on that blue line and hear your national anthem play and being a gold medal champion, you dream of that. And then to be able to accomplish that and actually win a gold medal and represent your country its an amazing feeling. ~ Sidney Crosby

There is really a je ne sais quoi about turkey cooking - the air of festivity, the family squabbles, the constant basting - that does not apply to the turkey breast, which is, really, a convenience of food ... A turkey without seasonal angst is like a baseball game without a national anthem, a winter without snow, a birthday party without candles. ~ Laurie Colwin

The national anthem of Hell is 'I did it my way. ~ Peter Kreeft

...He can recite to you the nomenclature of a machine gun or grenade launcher and use either one effectively is he must.
He digs foxholes and latrines and can apply first aid like a professional.
He can march until he is told to stop, or stop until he is told to march.
He obeys orders instantly and without hesitation, but he is not without spirit or individual dignity. He is self-sufficient.
...He sometimes forgets to brush his teeth, but never to clean his rifle. He can cool his own meals, mend his own clothes, and fix his own hurts.
...He'll even split his ammunition with you in the midst of battle when you run low.
He has learned to use his hands like weapons and weapons like they were his hands.
He can save your life- or take it, because that is his job. He will often do twice the work of a civilian, draw half the pay, and still find ironic humor in it all. He has seen more suffering and death than he should have in his short lifetime. He has wept in public and in private, for friends who have fallen in combat and is unashamed.
He feels every note of the National Anthem vibrate through his body while at rigid attention, while tempering the burning desire to "square-away" those around him who haven't bothered to stand, remove their hat, or even stop talking.
...Just as did his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, he is paying the price for our freedom. Beardless or not, he is not a boy. He is the American Fighting ~ Sarah Palin

Maybe we like our politicians to appear like bumbling oafs. It certainly never did Ronald Reagan or George Bush any harm. The Italians still seem enamoured of Silvio Berlusconi - a man whose entry into a room is less likely to be greeted with the Italian national anthem than by the Benny Hill theme tune. ~ Rory Bremner

Twenty centuries of 'progress' have brought the average citizen a vote, a national anthem, a Ford, a bank account, and a high opinion of himself, but not the capacity to live in high density without befouling and denuding his environment, nor a conviction that such capacity, rather than such density, is the true test of whether he is civilized. ~ Aldo Leopold

When the thousands of people sang the national anthem, with their right hands over their chest, I cried. It was as if we were singing about an America that we wanted but didn't have, especially the part about the land of the free. ~ Michael Patrick MacDonald

You might be a redneck if you have started a petition to change the National Anthem to Georgia on My Mind. ~ Jeff Foxworthy

Probably when people hear our national anthem they think of me. A real American hero. ~ Jarod Kintz

Our national anthem is the symbols of our country.
it represents the tradition, history, and beliefs of our nation and its people.
We South Sudanese do not need President Kiir's presence to sing it.

Oh God
we Praise and Glorify you
For your grace on South Sudan
Land of great abundance
Uphold us United in Peace and Harmony

Whenever we are singing our national anthem with our chest up and our eyes in the sky, we feel the unity, love, peace and togetherness among us as Citizens of South Sudan.

Oh! Motherland
Arise, raise your flag with the guiding star
And sing-song of freedom with joy
For justice, Liberty and prosperity
shall forever reign,

The national anthem reminds Us of Our nation's glory, beauty, rich heritage, and most importantly it is about us, and our martyrs who sacrificed their lives for our beautiful country South Sudan but not for only you Mr President.

Oh! great patriots
Let us stand up in silence and respect
saluting our martyrs whose blood
Cemented our national foundation,
we protect our nation
oh God blessed South Sudan

The national anthem helps evoke feelings of patriotism among us South Sudanese
It also helps us South Sudan united in peace and harmony by singing it.

The questions are: Who is President Kiir to deny us this feeling of Patriotism?
Does president Kiir's presence anywhere instal ~ Abuzik Ibni Farajalla

These stupid biases and discrimination are the reason our country is so screwed up. It's Tamil first, Indian later. Punjabi first, Indian later. It has to end. National anthem, national currency, national teams - still, we won't marry our children outside our state. How can this intolerance be good for our country? ~ Chetan Bhagat

The crudest thing I've done as a teacher was to require students to write a national anthem for their country and sing it themselves. ~ Chris Van Allsburg

If you forget the words to your own song, you can always claim artistic license. Forget the words to the national anthem, and you're screwed. ~ Lyle Lovett

The national anthem blows. Are you kidding me? Do any of you have it on your iPod? ~ Daniel Tosh

At school my nickname is the National Anthem girl. ~ Diana DeGarmo

I'm sorry. I know how much players have to focus, and I know not to be a distraction. I just got caught up in the moment, in the great game, in your terrific pitching."

But I felt a need to explain more.

"Look, Jason, I love baseball. I love the crack of the bat hitting the ball. I love the seventh-inning stretch and singing 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game.' I love eating hot dogs and standing for the singing of the national anthem. I love doing the wave. I love Kiss Cam. I love that the game isn't over until it's over.

"I love the thrill of a home run and the disappointment of an out at first. I love the way a batter stands at the plate and the catcher readies himself to receive the pitch. I love watching the pitcher windup. I love sitting in the stands and feeling like I'm part of the game.

"And tonight, watching you pitch, I forgot that I'm only a small part - the spectator. Watching you, I felt like I was in the game, out on that field with you. You're out there on the mound, living a dream that so few people ever experience.

"I'm sorry, sorry that tonight I ruined the moment for you."

He was staring at me intently. I'd just bared my soul. Why didn't he speak? What could he possibly be thinking?

My nerves stretched taut.

"Say something," I demanded.

"There's nothing else to say," he said in that quiet way he had.

Then he lowered his head and kissed me. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

Obviously, he didn't think I understood the whole ritual scene, and in truth, I didn't.
I mean, sure, when I played softball, I always chewed cinnamon-flavored gum during the game, and I never started chewing until after the national anthem. But that was different. If I didn't do that, I missed way more balls than I caught.
But home runs? There was nothing that guaranteed home runs. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

If you were a country," I said, "what would your national anthem be?"
I meant a pre-existing song
"What a Wonderful World" or "Que Sera, Sera" or something to make it a joke, like "Hey Ya!" ("I would like, more than anything else, for my nation to be shaken like a Polaroid picture.") ~ David Levithan

It is not surprising that only one medieval state, Venice, long possessed anything clearly identifiavble as a navy in this sense. We shall see that no state in the British Isles attained attained this level of sophistication before the 16th century, and no history of the Royal Navy, in any exact sense of the words, could legitimately begin much before then. This book, which does, is not an institutional history of the Royal Navy, but a history of naval warfare as an aspect of national history. All and any methods of fighting at sea, or using the sea for warlike purposes, are its concern. ~ Nicholas Rodger

All the arts are predominantly national, and therefore the Australian Film Commission should be funding us. The battle gets more and more vicious each year. ~ Ann Macbeth

After all, enforced national bilingualism in this country isn't mere policy. It has attained the status of a religion. It's a dogma which one is supposed to accept without question. ~ Stephen Harper

I think there is no work of art which represents the spirit of a nation more surely than "Die Meister Singer" of Richard Wagner. Here is no plaything with local colour, but the raising to its highest power all that is best in the national consciousness of his country. ~ Ralph Vaughan Williams

Woman's Anthem
Women are fierce. They are powerful. No matter what language they speak, how they dress, or the work they choose to do. What matters is they have a choice, and the freedom to carve out a life for themselves.
As long as we know women who are strong and resilient, we must respect them, carry them forward, lift them up.
For they are the product of all our other selves, the women we were, the ones we strive to be, the collective struggle of our mothers, our sisters, our daughters.
Our salvation will only come if we stand together ~ Lang Leav

You know this baseball game of ours comes up from the youth. That means the boys. And after you've been a boy, and grow up to know how to play ball, then you come to the boys you see representing themselves today in our national pastime. ~ George Herman

The English playwrights of the '50s and '60s didn't really keep writing or getting produced, while the Irish did. There's encouragement for the younger ones also in the fact that Ireland is exceptional in its ability to make theater part of the national dialogue, and it reaches to all four corners of the country. ~ Garry Hynes

I do want to be very clear: I see our nuclear deterrent as absolutely core insurance for our national security. ~ Andrea Leadsom

Fundamental questions are being asked about the future of the Eurozone and therefore the shape of the EU itself. Opportunities to advance our national interest are clearly becoming apparent. We should focus on how to make the most of this, not pursue a parliamentary process for a multiple choice referendum. ~ David Cameron

My heart's in stage. Making 'Quadrophenia' was exciting because we were riding around on scooters with no crash helmets. But 'hurry up and wait' is the anthem of films. Everybody wants you ready, and then you sit doing nothing. ~ Phil Daniels

When Hume and Adam Smith prophesied that a little increase of national debt beyond the then amount of it, would probably occasion bankruptcy; the main cause of their error was the natural one, of not being able to see the vast increase of productive power to which the nation would subsequently obtain. ~ Thomas Malthus

9:12 P.M. - GROUND ZERO, WASHINGTON, D.C. Without warning, the capital of the United States was obliterated. At precisely 9:12 p.m. Eastern, in a millisecond of time, in a blinding flash of light, the White House simply ceased to exist, as did everything and everyone else for miles in every direction. No sooner had the first missile detonated in Lafayette Park than temperatures soared into the millions of degrees. The firestorm and blast wave that followed consumed everything in its path. Gone was the Treasury building, and with it the headquarters of the United States Secret Service. Gone was the FBI building, and the National Archives, and the Supreme Court, and the U.S. Capitol and all of its surrounding buildings. Wiped away was every monument, every museum, every restaurant, every hotel, every hospital, every library and landmark of any kind, every sign of civilization. ~ Joel C. Rosenberg

My life has changed in many ways, both on an economic and personal level. All major league players are accorded the respect they deserve. In Cuba, it was not that way. National team players were not respected. The treatment was not adequate. ~ Yoenis Cespedes

Yes sir, yes madam, I entreat you, get out of those motorized wheelchairs, get off your foam rubber backsides, stand up straight like men! like women! like human beings! and walk-walk-WALK upon our sweet and blessed land! ~ Edward Abbey

Democrats are channeling their frustration with America's imminent military victory in Afghanistan into hysterical opposition to reasonable national security measures at home. (Incidentally, this ought to prove once and for all what a bunch of paper tigers the Russians are. What were they doing over there for 10 years? It hasn't taken us 10 weeks.) ~ Ann Coulter

A nation that can't control its energy sources can't control its future. ~ Barack Obama

I think on a national level your Department of Law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out. ~ Sarah Palin

Military operations cannot be tidy or free of friction - particularly in a coalition whose contributing nations see the campaign through national prisms. ~ Mike Jackson

...9/11 was immediately understood not only as a tragedy for the United States and the city of New York but also as a global outrage, which took the lives of so many citizens from across the world. The headline emphasized the manner in which questions of identity were geographically and emotionally connected - the local (New York, Pennsylvania and Washington), the national (United States), and the global. Shortly afterwards, however, the event became reinscribed in overwhelmingly national terms - 'Attack on America'. Tragically, as former Vice President Al Gore has said, the United States has squandered that global goodwill and solidarity by its largely unilateral engagement in Iraq and other activities which have been judged by others to be inimical to international law, such as extraordinary rendition, detention camps, and the doctrine of pre-emption. We are certainly not all Americans now. ~ Klaus Dodds

Even among Sedlacek's own small cell, his Viennese anti-Nazi club, it was not imagined that the pursuit of the Jews had grown quite so systematic. Not only was the story Schindler told him startling simply in moral terms: one was asked to believe that in the midst of a desperate battle, the National Socialists would devote thousands of men, the resources of precious railroads, and enormous cubic footage of cargo space, expensive techniques of engineering, a fatal margin of their research-and-development scientists, a substantial bureaucracy, whole arsenals of automatic weapons, whole magazines of ammunition, all to an extermination which had no military or economic meaning but merely a psychological one. ~ Thomas Keneally

The government needs to help those in need, but members of Congress shouldn't take advantage of the situation and use a national tragedy as an opportunity to spend taxpayer dollars on their pet projects. ~ Chris Chocola

When women have a voice in national and international affairs, wars will cease forever. ~ Augusta Stowe-Gullen

I had a unique circumstance in which my career was associated with George W. Bush, who went straight to the top. I went to work for him in October of 1993. So my whole identity in national politics is associated with this president, and you know, I kind of want to leave it that way. It's not tugging at me to go do the '08 cycle. ~ Dan Bartlett

I think the writer's quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the director, is also director of the National Theatre is, I'd have thought, slightly more risky. ~ Alan Bennett

It is safe to say that the Teton Range is as breathtaking as any mountain landscape one could ever see. ~ Stefanie Payne

Believe it or not, there are places in the world where music is important. There are places in the world where all the arts are a matter of national pride. ~ Frank Zappa

I cannot imagine anything nobler or more national than that for, say, one hour in the day we should all do the labor the poor must do, and thus identify ourselves with them and through them, with all mankind. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

In France, Paul explained, good cooking was regarded as a combination of national sport and high art, and wine was always served with lunch and dinner. "The trick is moderation," he said. ~ Julia Child

A weaker currency is a national tariff. After we get a weaker currency, we have to take advantage of that. Or else, we will waste it once more in inflation and in the inability to raise competitiveness. ~ Uday Kotak

There was something strangely compelling about a Japanese guy with lamb-chop sideburns and a voice so shrill you could be forgiven for thinking his testicles were wired to the national grid. ~ Jamie Holoran

Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress but they regard the things government does for others as socialism.
[Address to National Press Club in Washington DC, as quoted in Freedom and Union (April 1952)] ~ Earl Warren

How skillful to tax the middle class to pay for the relief of the poor, building resentment on top of humiliation! How adroit to bus poor black youngsters into poor white neighborhoods, in a violent exchange of impoverished schools, while the schools of the rich remain untouched and the wealth of the nation, doled out carefully where children need free milk, is drained for billion-dollar aircraft carriers. How ingenious to meet the demands of blacks and women for equality by giving them small special benefits, and setting them in competition with everyone else for jobs made scares by an irrational, wasteful system. How wise to turn the fear and anger of the majority toward a class of criminals bred - by economic inequity - faster than they can be put away, deflecting attention from the huge thefts of national resources carried out within the law by men in executive offices. ~ Howard Zinn

national television broadcast a fifty-two-episode serialization of the Mahabharata, the script was written by a Muslim poet, Dr. Rahi Masoom Raza. ~ Shashi Tharoor

Social and cultural change, however desirable, should not be effected by the engines of national power. Let us, through persuasion and education, seek to improve institutions we deem defective. But let us, in doing so, respect the orderly processes of the law. Any other course enthrones tyrants and dooms freedom. ~ Barry Goldwater

Mark you, if you give up spirituality, leaving it aside to go after the materializing civilization of the West, the result will be that in three generations you will be an extinct race; because the backbone of the nation will be broken, the foundation upon which the national edifice has been built will be undermined, and the result will be annihilation all round. ~ Swami Vivekananda

The United States has every intention of continuing to do the kind of reconnaissance and surveillance work we have done for decades, well known to everyone, that is essential to protect our national security, and frankly, the security of our friends in various regions of the world. It is part of our collection system. ~ Colin Powell

Real cultural diversity results from the interchange of ideas, products, and influences, not from the insular development of a single national style. ~ Tyler Cowen

In the years of its rise the movement little by little brought the community's attitude toward the teacher around from respect and envy to resentment, from trust and fear to suspicion. The development seems to have been inherent; it needed no planning and had none. As the Nazi emphasis on nonintellectual virtues (patriotism, loyalty, duty, purity, labor, simplicity, "blood," "folkishness") seeped through Germany, elevating the self-esteem of the "little man," the academic profession was pushed from the very center to the very periphery of society. Germany was preparing to cut its own head off. By 1933 at least five of my ten friends (and I think six or seven) looked upon "intellectuals" as unreliable and, among those unreliables, upon the academics as the most insidiously situated. ~ Milton Sanford Mayer