Small Countries Quotes

As a small country, both in size and population, our future hinges on the quality of our people. ~ Hassanal Bolkiah

There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. ~ Vladimir Putin

Poland is not a very large country, but it's also not a small country. ~ Donald Tusk

Holland is a fairly small country, and in a weird way, somewhat conservative. That might surprise people because it is a very tolerant place, but it's also a somewhat Calvinist country. ~ Ari Marcopoulos

Sweden is a small country, and a Swedish writer can barely make a living as an author. We were able to quit our jobs as journalists only after we had been translated into, among others, German. ~ Maj Sjowall

You cannot tell a poor boy from a small country town on the plains of South Dakota who has had the opportunity to be a teacher, a mayor, a senator, and a vice president, that America is not a nation of promise. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

New Zealand is not a small country but a large village. ~ Peter Jackson

I have known a great many politicians who have not managed to stay in power for 16 years. I have nevertheless already managed to remain at the helm for 18 years. I still want to achieve a great many things for my country. Experience is not a disadvantage here, especially as the head of government of a small country in a European setting that has become more difficult. ~ Jean-Claude Juncker

Europe started out with six countries; three small countries and three large countries. ~ Jean-Pierre Raffarin

I can't do Los Angeles. I've always been the anti-Barbie. I don't want to be in a place where almost every woman walks around with puffy lips, little noses and breasts large enough to nourish a small country. ~ Vera Farmiga

A small country cannot contend with a great; the few cannot contend with the many; the weak cannot contend with the strong ~ Mencius

Suppose you were to total up all the wars over the past two hundred years that occurred between very large and very small countries. Let's say that one side has to be at least ten times larger in population and armed might than the other. How often do you think the bigger side wins? Most of us, I think, would put that number at close to 100 percent. A tenfold difference is a lot. But the actual answer may surprise you. When the political scientist Ivan Arreguin-Toft did the calculation a few years ago, what he came up with was 71.5 percent. Just under a third of the time, the weaker country wins.
Arreguin-Toft then asked the question slightly differently. What happens in wars between the strong and the weak when the weak side […] refuses to fight the way the bigger side wants to fight, using unconventional or guerilla tactics? The answer: in those cases, the weaker party's winning percentage climbs from 28.5 percent to 63.6 percent. To put that in perspective, the United Stats' population is ten times the size of Canada's. If the two countries went to war and Canada chose to fight unconventionally, history would suggest that you ought to put your money on Canada. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as [inherently] exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord's blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal. ~ Vladimir Putin

I never thought I'd be in a family that has more people than a small country. ~ Scott Disick

Denmark is a country built on a commercial fleet. That's basically what we have been doing. We're just a small country of islands, and every family has a sailor. So, in many ways, my father was a sailor before I was born. ~ Tobias Lindholm

Obviously, it was a big life change for me and quite a shock to suddenly have these songs I'd written in my bedroom as a far-too-intense teenager all over the airwaves and see my face on buses, especially in a small country like New Zealand, but at the same time it was such a thrill and an honour knowing that my music was reaching people. ~ Brooke Fraser

It is the entire euro zone system which is under threat at the moment, not just a few small countries anymore ... Our euro is under threat. The changing situation needs a quick and immediate reaction. ~ Iveta Radicova

Running a small country and managing a game is almost synonymous. ~ Frank Pearce

When I was very young, Denmark was a very small country, and we still are, but it was then very provincial and everybody knew everybody. Now, we are very much like the rest of the world, especially with the arrival of the internet. ~ Michala Petri

A small country town is not the place in which one would choose to quarrel with a wife; every human being in such places is a spy. ~ Samuel Johnson

It's a unique situation as well because England is a small country, so it makes it easy for the fans to travel. If we play down in London, they get buses and we'll get three or four thousand fans come down. They'll all sit in the same area and show their support for the team. ~ Claudio Reyna

A small country like Georgia has little influence on conflicts that must be resolved at the global level. ~ Bidzina Ivanishvili

Women run the small country called Home, millions of us do it in our spare time, and no one who doesn't run that small country really knows what it feels like in the dead of night when task lists jitter like tickertape through your seething brain. ~ Allison Pearson

a chin that could destroy small countries if it fell into the wrong hands. ~ Brandon Sanderson

Britain is a very small country with a very large press. ~ David Hockney

Another chestnut is that millionaires and billionaires are "job creators." U.S. corporations have recently had their most profitable quarters in history; at the end of 2011, Apple was sitting on $97.6 billion in cash, more than the GDP of most small countries. So where are the jobs? Overwhelmingly, they went to China.4 Another ~ Mike Lofgren

In some countries, the churches took over the place of the castles. In my opinion, these same churches represent the castles. For they have the same wealth like that of the kings. ~ Mwanandeke Kindembo

It has always seemed to me extreme presumptuousness on the part of those who want to make human ability the measure of what nature can and knows how to do, since, when one comes down to it, there is not one effect in nature, no matter how small, that even the most speculative minds can fully understand. ~ Galileo Galilei

The small hand of a clock taps me at one and two, three and four, whispering hello, get up, stand up, it's time to
wake up
wake up
"Wake up," he whispers. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Embrace reality. Think about what delights you - the small luxuries on which you depend, the people whom you cherish most. But remember that they have their own distinct character, which is quite a separate matter from how we happen to regard them. ~ Epictetus

Where does that door lead to?" Day pointed at a door which opened out onto the dark alley.

"I looked it up. It appears to be a small film studio," the other officer finally stopped staring at God long enough to add to the conversation. "Porn films."

Day looked up in amusement. "Shut the fuck up."

The two cops nodded. "That's what we pulled up in the system. We went around to the front. It's locked and no one's inside. We called the number registered to the address, but got no answer."

"Who's the owner of the company?" God asked.

The officer flipped a couple pages on his notebook. "Illustra is owned by Johnathan Mack. We also have a list of all the performers and staff."

Day looked at God. "I bet that little vixen we just apprehended has a recurring role here. Wonder what made her so mad that she wanted to kill someone as soon as she finished fucking."

"Maybe she didn't get to come." Ronowski chuckled, joined by several of the team members.

Syn grimaced.

"Yeah, that might make you homicidal alright," Day added. "But I wouldn't know."

"Day, shut the fuck up," God barked at his lover's usual inappropriateness. It seemed Day had never met a boundary he didn't stomp right over. ~ A.E. Via

Never a dull moment," he muttered. They'd been flash and
bang from the first moment they'd met.
"Yeah, well, if you weren't such a dick ... ," Ty murmured with a
small smile.
Zane snickered. "Works out well since you're an asshole."
"We're gonna have to talk about these puns." Ty groaned. ~ Abigail Roux

There's a small worm called Loa Loa Filariasis. This parasite can survive in one environment exclusively- namely, underneath the skin and inside the eyes of human beings. Children and the elderly in tropical regions (usually the poorest) are the most widely affected. A painful, slow death is virtually certain. The worm can actually live in the host for 17 years before the host finally dies. ~ David Attenborough

One thing I found very interesting about comedians around the world was their knowledge of stuff outside of their own culture and comfort zone. That's not very common in the States. We produce our own soft power, which is pop culture, but we rarely try to absorb and learn information from other cultures and countries. ~ Hasan Minhaj

There was great political uncertainty in South Asia at the time of the Buddha. The older small tribal societies were cracking up and gave way to bigger states. There was much more trade and travel going on than before. To people in the cities the experience of living in a small place where you knew everyone and governed your affairs by consensual democracy had been lost. ~ Pankaj Mishra

In Southeast Asia the world is understood to be a vast, complex network of interdependent relationships. So when global capitalism makes it impossible for small-time rice farmers to feed their families and make a living, it is a natural thing for anyone in the family who can find an alternative source of income to do so. ~ John Burdett

The German and the Brazilian market is small. When we went to France they know a lot more, than just the American comics. The audience there was much different. ~ Gabriel Ba

We are ready to build large underground gas storages in Turkey, to participate in the privatization of Turkey's gas-distribution networks, to use the existing and participate in the construction of new pipelines in order to supply our energy resources through Turkey to third countries, including in southern Europe ~ Vladimir Putin

This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I live in the United States, and I'm not moving. But from the standpoint of food safety, the countries in Scandinavia do it better than we do. It's not that they don't have food-poisoning incidents; it's that there are many fewer in proportion to the population. ~ Marion Nestle

Among many events in life, failure is a small event, so ignore it and prepare for another one. ~ Debasish Mridha

We do not get to this age to be written off. Older people can act as a support system, which is what happens more in Mediterranean countries. People become much wiser as they get older and we should value that. ~ Susan Hampshire

Writing: such has been my crime ever since I was a small child. To this day writing remains my crime. Now, although I am out of prison, I continue to live inside a prison of another sort, one without steel bars. For the technology of oppression and might without justice has become more advanced, and the fetters imposed on mind and body have become invisible. The most dangerous shackles are the invisible ones, because they deceive people into believing they are free. This delusion is the new prison that people inhabit today, north and south, east and west...We inhabit the age of the technology of false consciousness, the technology of hiding truths behind amiable humanistic slogans that may change from one era to another...Democracy is not just freedom to criticize the government or head of state, or to hold parliamentary elections. True democracy obtains only when the people - women, men, young people, children - have the ability to change the system of industrial capitalism that has oppressed them since the earliest days of slavery: a system based on class division, patriarchy, and military might, a hierarchical system that subjugates people merely because they are born poor, or female, or dark-skinned. ~ Nawal El Saadawi

They were roots, Michael realized. Every memory of Maria was a root she had put inside his body. Too many roots, he thought. If Michael left all that roots could come off, shattering him to pieces. There would be nothing, just small and useless parts. ~ Melinda Metz

On the New York Stock Exchange, all buy and sell orders are routed through a single 'specialist,' guaranteeing that most small trades can be matched directly. But most larger trades are delivered to the specialist on the floor of the exchange by human brokers, a system that big investors view as increasingly inefficient. ~ Alex Berenson

I know a lot of stuff... but what I will say is that you know very small for what's really on the deep web. ~ Deyth Banger

Life is, in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting, but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as it stands is no narrow illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of the night; we wake up to it, forever and ever; and we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it. ~ Henry James

Such finery, paid for at the small cost of human lives and dignity. ~ Alyssa Cole

Many sentences popped out of Amos's mouth that Redelmeier knew he would forever remember: A part of good science is to see what everyone else can see but think what no one else has ever said. The difference between being very smart and very foolish is often very small. So many problems occur when people fail to be obedient when they are supposed to be obedient, and fail to be creative when they are supposed to be creative. The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours. It is sometimes easier to make the world a better place than to prove you have made the world a better place. Redelmeier ~ Michael Lewis

Change will not come from above, it will come from below, from the small and medium size businesspeople. They do dare to show their faces. They applaud us and help us financially. ~ Vicente Fox

Oh these little rejections how they add up quickly, one small sideways look and I feel so ungood. Somewhere along the way I think I gave you the power to make me feel the way I thought only my father could. ~ Alanis Morissette

From that day, I vowed never to squander a moment's care over the good opinion of others. May they rot in hell. You have heard of my abstemiousness in matters of food and sex. Here is why: I punished myself. If I caught my thoughts straying to another's opinion of me, I sent myself to bed without supper. As for women, I likewise permitted myself none. I missed no few meals, and no small pleasure, before I brought this vice under control. ~ Steven Pressfield

Oh-ho, so you are a witch. More like a witchling, as you're too small to be a full witch." (Emmerich) ~ Suzanna J. Linton

Judith Stacey - a prominent New York University professor who is in no way regarded as a fringe figure, in testifying before Congress against the Defense of Marriage Act - expressed hope that the revisionist view's triumph would give marriage "varied, creative, and adaptive contours . . . [leading some to] question the dyadic limitations of Western marriage and seek . . . small group marriages."44 In their statement "Beyond Same-Sex Marriage," more than three hundred "LGBT and allied" scholars and advocates - including prominent Ivy League professors - call for legally recognizing sexual relationships involving more than two partners.45 University of Calgary Professor Elizabeth Brake thinks that justice requires us to use legal recognition to "denormalize[] heterosexual monogamy as a way of life" and correct for "past discrimination against homosexuals, bisexuals, polygamists, and care networks."46 ~ Sherif Girgis

See how small your are next to the mountains. Accept what is bigger that you and what you do not understand. The world may appear illogical to you, but it does not follow that it is illogical per se. Our life is not the measure of all things: consider sublime places a reminder of human insignificance and frailty. ~ Alain De Botton

When I did a year-long study in 2005 of European countries integrating Muslims into their cultures, France came in the lowest of the rank. Sweden was not far behind, though, which is worrying, as racism in France is much closer to the bone. ~ Janine Di Giovanni

The baby looked at Simon, then back at Alec. His small face looked thoughtful, as if he might shake his head and go: That Jace, what will he do next? ~ Cassandra Clare

My mother once said that having a small child is like having a permanently drunk houseguest. ~ Moira Hodgson

We're all strangers connected by what we reveal, what we share, what we take away
our stories. I guess that's what I love about books
they are thin strands of humanity that tether us to one another for a small bit of time, that make us feel less alone or even more comfortable with our aloneness, if need be. ~ Libba Bray

I understood that in this small space of time we had mutually surrendered our loneliness and replaced it with trust. ~ Patti Smith

The best gardens are created through the art of deception, says Fox. Gardens should employ the art of the large in the small and the small in the large, providing for the real in the unreal and the unreal in the real. ~ Janie Chang

For the briefest moment, they came face to face. Their eyes locked. Then he broke the stare, swiveled, sank into a sitting position, chains clanking, with his knees up.
She watched him speechlessly as he set a cooler bag between his boots, like he was settling down to a picnic or something. An image of the contents as hospital blood bags, complete with juice straws, flashed through her mind.
Unfolding her legs, she made herself as comfortable as she could on the cold outer edge of the sill. An intangible and unnameable charge electrified the space between them, and at first, neither of them said anything.
[ ... ] Finally she heard him unzip the bag and watched him pull out a small cylinder.
"I thought you might like some crappy ice cream," he said. ~ Kelly Creagh

It will be enough to recall in th is sense that almost all the Countries arose, centuries ago, through cruel conquests. With exception, men have been squandering servants th at at the moment of adjustment did not appear to be worthy of the benefits received. ~ Chico Xavier

On the small scale, 'Ico,' I think, actually delivered a small new thing: holding a character's hand and really feeling like your job is to rescue this person, and establishing a personal connection. ~ Warren Spector

For me, the international expansion of eBay was the best idea. We are now in 35 countries, and have a huge global network. The second best one was the acquisition of PayPal - the wallet on eBay. ~ Meg Whitman

Few if any countries understand the growing importance of water as fully as Turkey does. ~ Stephen Kinzer

All the problems that came up... they all arose because of the foreign bodies within us ― things that happened in our childhood, some big, some small, but all significant; things that happened ten years ago, but still control our lives today; things from our yesterdays that will decide what we drink, dream, and doubt, till the day we die. But you can't see those things, because they're not on the outside. ~ Hwee Hwee Tan

Love is an excellent thing and a very great blessing, indeed. It makes every difficulty easy. It bears a burden without being weighted, and renders sweet all that is bitter. Love knows no limits, feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, because it believes that it may and can do all things; for this reason it is able to do all, performing much where he who does not love fails and falls. Love is watchful. Sleeping, it does not slumber. Like a living flame, a burning torch, it tends upward and passes unharmed through every obstacle. Whatever faults may be committed, big or small, whatever clouds may pile up on the horizon, dark and threatening, love will overcome all. ~ Maria Augusta Von Trapp

The key is to take a larger project or goal and break it down into smaller problems to be solved, constraining the scope of work to solving a key problem, and then another key problem.
This strategy, of breaking a project down into discrete, relatively small problems to be resolved, is what Bing Gordon, a cofounder and the former chief creative officer of the video game company Electronic Arts, calls smallifying. Now a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, Gordon has deep experience leading and working with software development teams. He's also currently on the board of directors of Amazon and Zynga. At Electronic Arts, Gordon found that when software teams worked on longer-term projects, they were inefficient and took unnecessary paths. However, when job tasks were broken down into particular problems to be solved, which were manageable and could be tackled within one or two weeks, developers were more creative and effective. ~ Peter Sims

The small prayers of weak and broken people move the heart of God. ~ Mike Bickle

A very high fraction of America's economic problems come not from our difficulties with education or globalization or competition with the Chinese or whatever. But they come from the fact that a small number of wealthy and powerful people who run dangerous and/or inefficient companies are able, through the use of money in the political process, to prevent the government from regulating them properly. ~ Charles Ferguson

The smaller newspapers probably won't have any critics at all. Maybe that's not such a bad thing because there's a certain level of seriousness that you can't get with a small newspaper for critics. ~ Terry Teachout

Comely was the town by the curving river that they dismantled in a year's time. Beautiful was Colleton in her last spring as she flung azaleas like a girl throwing rice at a desperate wedding. In dazzling profusion, Colleton ripened in a gauze of sweet gardens and the town ached beneath a canopy of promissory fragrance. ~ Pat Conroy

Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise. ~ Alice Walker

Piper was maybe the most impressive. She fenced with the giantess Periboia, sword against sword. Despite the fact that her opponent was five times larger, Piper seemed to be holding her own. The goddess Aphrodite floated around them on a small white cloud, strewing rose petals in the giantess's eyes and calling encouragement to Piper. 'Lovely, my dear. Yes, good. Hit her again! ~ Rick Riordan