Nations Quotes - Page 22

• the people of one nation alone cannot save their own children; each holds the responsibility for the others' children.

  Margaret Mead

  Children, Responsibility, People

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• Everybody's suffering is mine but not everybody's murdering ... I do not distinguish for one moment whether my child is in danger or a child in central Asia. But I will not accept responsibility for what other people do because I happen to belong to that nation or that race or that religion. I do not believe in guilt by association.

  Margaret Mead

  Children, Believe, Responsibility

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• The earliest voice listened to by the nations in their infancy was the voice of the storyteller.

  Agnes Repplier

  Voice, Storytelling, Infancy

  Agnes Repplier (1898). “Varia”

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• America has invested her religion as well as her morality in sound income-paying securities. She has adopted the unassailable position of a nation blessed because it deserves to be blessed; and her sons, whatever other theologies they may affect or disregard, subscribe unreservedly to this national creed.

  Agnes Repplier

  Blessed, Son, America

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• The art of nations is to be accumulative, just as science and history are; the work of living men not superseding, but building itself upon the work of the past.

  John Ruskin

  Art, Past, Men

  John Ruskin (1872). “The Political Economy of Art: Being the Substance (with Additions) of Two Lectures Delivered at Manchester, July 10th and 13th, 1857”, p.56

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• Superstition, in all times and among all nations, is the fear of a spirit whose passions are those of a man, whose acts are the acts of a man; who is present in some places, not in others; who makes no places holy and not others; who is kind to one person, unkind to another; who is pleased or angry according to the degree of attention you pay him, or praise you refuse to him; who is hostile generally to human pleasure, but may be bribed by sacrifice of a part of that pleasure into permitting the rest. This, whatever form of faith it colors, is the essence of superstition.

  John Ruskin

  Passion, Sacrifice, Men

  John Ruskin (1907). “The Religion of Ruskin: The Life and Works of John Ruskin; a Biographical and Anthological Study”

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• When trust is lost, a nation's ability to transact business is palpably undermined.

  Alan Greenspan

  Lost, Ability

  Alan Greenspan (2008). “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World”, p.256, Penguin

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• Nice is a pallid virtue. Not like honesty or courage or perseverance. On the other hand, in a nation notably lacking in civility, there is much to be said for nice.

  Molly Ivins

  Perseverance, Honesty, Nice

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• It is a well-settled principle of the international code that where one nation owes another a liquidated debt which it refuses or neglects to pay the aggrieved party may seize on the property belonging to the other, its citizens or subjects, sufficient to pay the debt without giving just cause of war.

  Andrew Jackson

  War, Party, Giving

  Andrew Jackson (1837). “Messages ...: With a Short Sketch of His Life”, p.286

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• Blood will stream over Europe until the nations become aware of the frightful madness which drives them in circles. And then, struck by celestial music and made gentle, they approach their former altars all together, hear about the works of peace, and hold a great celebration of peace with fervent tears before the smoking altars.

  Novalis

  Blood, Europe, Circles

  White Rose - Leaflet 4, libcom.org. 1942.

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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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• Were a stranger to drop on a sudden into this world, I would show him, as a specimen of its ills, a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with malefactors and debtors, a field of battle strewed with carcasses, a fleet foundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, famine, or pestilence. To turn the gay side of life to him, and give him a notion of its pleasures; whither should I conduct him? to a ball, to an opera, to court? He might justly think, that I was only showing him a diversity of distress and sorrow.

  David Hume

  Ocean, Gay, Thinking

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.4068, Delphi Classics

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• It should not prejudice my voice that I'm not born a man, if I say something advantageous to the present situation. For I'm taxed too, and as a toll provide men for the nation.

  Aristophanes

  Men, Voice, Feminism

  Aristophanes “Lysistrata, or, women for peace!”, Lulu.com

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• Weak logic, inconsistencies and alienation from the people are common features of authoritarianism. The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of their own rightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large. Intimidation and propaganda work in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Ideas, People, Intellectual

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

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• The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation's development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution of the spirit, the forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Attitude, Views, Order

  "Freedom from Fear". Book by Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991.

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• The invasion of Iraq will surely go down in history as one of the most cowardly wars ever fought. It was a war in which a band of rich nations, armed with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over, rounded on a poor nation, falsely accused it of having nuclear weapons, used the United Nations to force it to disarm, then invaded it, occupied it, and are now in the process of selling it.

  Arundhati Roy

  War, Iraq, Nuclear

  Arundhati Roy (2006). “Ordinary Person's Guide To Empire”, p.333, Penguin Books India

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• Die breite Masse einesVolkes?einer groÞen Lu«  ge leichter zum Opfer f a« llt als einer kleinen. The broad mass of a nation?will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.

  Adolf Hitler

  Lying, Fall, Als

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• Ultimately there is no dividing line between Main Street and Wall Street. We will rise or we will fall together as one nation.

  Barack Obama

  Wall, Fall, Together

  "President Obama Pitches Financial Reform". "NBC Nightly News" with Brian Williams, archives.nbclearn.com. April 22, 2010.

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• Today, on this day of possibility, we stand in the shadow of a lanky, raw-boned man with little formal education who once took the stage at Old Main and told the nation that if anyone did not believe the American principles of freedom and equality, that those principles were timeless and all-inclusive, they should go rip that page out of the Declaration of Independence.

  Barack Obama

  Rip, Believe, Men

  Commencement Address at Knox College, delivered 4 June 2005, Galesburg, Illinois

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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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• No more painters, no more scribblers, no more musicians, no more sculptors, no more religions, no more royalists, no more radicals, no more imperialists, no more anarchists, no more socialists, no more communists, no more proletariat, no more democrats, no more republicans, no more bourgeois, no more aristocrats, no more arms, no more police, no more nations, an end at last to all this stupidity, nothing left, nothing at all, nothing, nothing.

  Louis Aragon

  Stupidity, Police, Musician

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• There should be a study of a house directly elected by the people of the world to whom the nations are accountable.

  Ernest Bevin

  People, House, World

  House of Commons speech, November 23, 1945.

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• The nation seems to slouch onward into its uncertain future like some huge inarticulate beast, too much attainted by wounds and ailments to be robust, but too strong and resourceful to succumb.

  Richard Hofstadter

  Strong, Too Much, Beast

  Quoted in Hedrick Smith The Power Game (1988).

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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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