Nations Quotes - Page 12

• Joe Biden will speak to the nation's largest gay rights group during a human rights convention on Friday. Then on Saturday, he is scheduled to speak to them again to apologize for whatever he said in Friday's speech.

  Jimmy Fallon

  Friday, Gay, Rights

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• It was the 60th anniversary of 'Face the Nation.' During his interview, President Obama said, 'Our country doesn't fear the future. We grab it.' Nothing says you grab the future like going on a 60-year-old show hosted by a 77-year-old-man to speak to a 90-year-old audience.

  Jimmy Fallon

  Country, Men, Years

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• To draw around the whole nation the strength of the General Government
  as a barrier against foreign foes... is [one of the] functions of the General Government on which [our citizens] have a right to call.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Citizens, Function

  Letter to Amos Marsh, November 20, 1801.

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• The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.

  John F. Kennedy

  Long Ago, People, Secret

  Address to the American Newspaper Publishers, delivered 27 April 1961, Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York

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• Wherever we look, the work of the chemist has raised the level of our civilization and has increased the productive capacity of the nation.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Civilization, Looks, Levels

  "Sid Meier's Civilization V". Video game, 2010.

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• We cannot allow the defense of American lives to be held hostage by the United Nations -- which has already given Saddam Hussein a final warning, and now wants to give him another final warning. And, if he doesn't heed that, they will threaten him with yet another warning.

  Thomas Sowell

  War, Giving, Finals

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• A nation's path to greatness lies in its economic prowess and ... militarism, empire, and aggression lead to a dead end.

  Fareed Zakaria

  Lying, Greatness, Empires

  Fareed Zakaria (2011). “The Post-American World: Release 2.0 (International Edition)”, p.108, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Law, in its most general and comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of action; and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate, or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we say, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. And it is that rule of action, which is prescribed by some superior, and which the inferior is bound to obey.

  William Blackstone

  Law, Optics, Action

  Sir William Blackstone, Edward Christian, John Frederick Archbold, Joseph Chitty (1827). “Commentaries on the Laws of England”, p.25

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• True loyalty consists not in bowing the knee to earthly greatness, or in heroic deeds to "gild the kingly knave, or garnish out the fool," but in noble, generous acts of honest purpose, where truth, honor, and virtue, and a nation's welfare, are dearer than life.

  James Ellis

  Loyalty, Greatness, Heroic Deeds

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• We must face the bitter fact that we have forsaken our great dream of a life of, for, and by the people; that the burning passions and ideals of the American dream lie congealed by cold cynicism. Great parts of the masses of our people no longer believe that they have a voice or a hand in shaping the destiny of this nation. They have not forsaken democracy because of any desire or positive action of their own; they have been driven down into the depths of a great despair born of frustration, hopelessness, and apathy. A democracy lacking in popular participation dies of paralysis.

  Saul Alinsky

  Dream, Lying, Believe

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• Despotic governments do not recognize the precious human component of the state, seeing its citizens only as a faceless, mindless -- and helpless -- mass to be manipulated at will. It is as though people were incidental to a nation rather than its very life-blood.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Government, Blood, Tyrants

  Aung San Suu Kyi (1991). “Freedom from fear: and other writings”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• The good ruler sublimates his needs as an individual to the service of the nation.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Needs, Individual, Rulers

  "In Quest of Democracy". Essay by Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991.

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• Sporting chivalrous contest helps knit the bonds of peace between nations. Therefore may the Olympic flame never expire.

  Adolf Hitler

  Flames, May, Helping

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• Chomsky proceeds on the almost unthinkably subversive assumption that the United States should be judged by the same standards that it preaches (often at gunpoint) to other nations he is nearly the only person now writing who assumes a single standard of international morality not for rhetorical effect, but as a matter of habitual, practically instinctual conviction.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Writing, United States, Matter

  Christopher Hitchens (1994). “For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports”, p.220, Verso

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• In dealing with those nations that break rules and laws, I believe that we must develop alternatives to violence that are tough enough to actually change behavior -- for if we want a lasting peace, then the words of the international community must mean something. Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable. Sanctions must exact a real price. Intransigence must be met with increased pressure -- and such pressure exists only when the world stands together as one.

  Barack Obama

  Real, Believe, Mean

  Nobel Prize for Peace Acceptance Speech and Lecture, delivered 10 December 2009, Oslo City Hall, Oslo, Norway

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• We can't afford to stand pat while the world races by. The United States of America did not become the most prosperous nation on Earth by sheer luck or happenstance. We got here because each time a generation of Americans has faced a changing world, we have changed with it. We have not feared our future; we have shaped it.

  Barack Obama

  America, Race, Luck

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• Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside. Each society must search for its own path, and no path is perfect.

  Barack Obama

  Perfect, Democracy, Path

  First Speech Before the United Nations General Assembly (64th Session), delivered 23 September 2009, New York, NY

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• Michelle will tell you that when we get together for Christmas or Thanksgiving, it's like a little mini-United Nations... I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher... We've got it all.

  Barack Obama

  Together, Looks, Littles

  "Keeping Hope Alive". The Oprah Winfrey Show, October 18, 2006.

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• Only those of us, I think, who were born under Queen Victoria know what it feels like to assume, without questioning, that England is permanently top nation, that foreigners do not matter, and that if the worst comes to the worst, Lord Salisbury will send a gunboat.

  Ronald Knox

  Queens, Thinking, Matter

  "God and the Atom". Book by Ronald Knox, pp. 53 - 54, 1945.

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• I'm kind of an accidental instrument, really, through which I hope that the judgment and the will of this nation can be expressed.

  Eugene McCarthy

  Kind, Judgment, Instruments

  "Eugene J. McCarthy, Senate Dove Who Jolted '68 Race, Dies at 89" by Francis X. Clines, www.nytimes.com. Decemebr 11, 2005.

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• [President Bush should] quit hiding behind the Secret Service, come out and face the nation and explain his failure to protect the country.

  Peter Jennings

  Country, Secret, President

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• A nation without a religion - that is like a man without breath.

  Joseph Goebbels

  Men, Breaths

  "Michael: a German fate in diary notes". Book by Joseph Goebbels, 1929.

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• To the American people of 1789, their nation promised a new way of life: each individual a free man; each having the right to seek his own happiness; a republican form of government in which the people would be sovereign; and no arbitrary power over people's lives. Less than two hundred years later, almost every aspect of the dream has been lost.

  Charles A. Reich

  Dream, Men, Years

  charles a. reich (1970). “the greening of america”

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• No nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over all others. We all share responsibility for each other's security, and only by working to make each other secure can we hope to achieve lasting security for ourselves.

  Kofi Annan

  Responsibility, Achieve, Share

  Kofi Annan's speech - Americas - International Herald Tribune, www.nytimes.com. December 11, 2006.

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• Under the benignant providence of Almighty God the representatives of the States and of the people are again brought together to deliberate for the public good. The gratitude of the nation to the sovereign arbiter of all human events should be commensurate with the boundless blessings which we enjoy. Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world.

  James K. Polk

  Country, Gratitude, Blessing

  James K. Polk (2009). “Messages and Papers of the Presidents: James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, and Franklin Pierce”, p.2479, Wildside Press LLC

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