The greatest nations have all acted like gangsters and the smallest like prostitutes.
—Stanley Kubrick (1928–99) American Film Director, Writer, Film Producer, Photographer
I find that the Americans have no passions, they have appetites.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
I do not call the sod under my feet my country; but language—religion—government—blood—identity in these makes men of one country.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The Britons are quite separated from all the world.
—Virgil (70–19 BCE) Roman Poet
The United Nations was not set up to be a reformatory. It was assumed that you would be good before you got in and not that being in would make you good.
—John Foster Dulles (1888–1959) American Republican Public Official, Lawyer
Great countries are those that produce great people.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members.
—Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) American Head of State
How can you govern a country with two hundred and forty six varieties of cheese?
—Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) French General, Statesman
I am like a doctor. I have written a prescription to help the patient. If the patient doesn’t want all the pills I’ve recommended, that’s up to him. But I must warn that next time I will have to come as a surgeon with a knife.
—Javier Perez de Cuellar (1920–2020) Peruvian & United Nations Diplomat
Historians are to nationalism what poppy-growers in Pakistan are to heroin-addicts: we supply the essential raw material for the market.
—Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British Historian
The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
The Irish ignore anything they can’t drink or punch.
—Common Proverb
The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Americans are like a rich father who wishes he knew how to give his sons the hardships that made him rich.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Frenchmen have an unlimited capacity for gallantry and indulge it on every occasion.
—Moliere (1622–73) French Playwright
We Jews have a secret weapon in our struggle with the Arabs; we have no place to go.
—Golda Meir (1898–1978) Israeli Head of State
A people always ends by resembling its shadow.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
There is always something new out of Africa.
—Pliny the Elder (23–79CE) Roman Statesman, Scholar
Nations! What are nations? Tartars! and Huns! and Chinamen! Like insects they swarm. The historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a man that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the world.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Florentine Political Philosopher
Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
We prefer world law, in the age of self-determination, to world war in the age of mass extermination.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
It is equality of monotony which makes the strength of the British Isles.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American First Lady, Diplomat, Humanitarian
The French complain of everything, and always.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
The best thing I know between France and England is the sea.
—Douglas William Jerrold (1803–57) English Writer, Dramatist, Wit
God how I hate new countries: They are older than the old, more sophisticated, much more conceited, only young in a certain puerile vanity more like senility than anything.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
Put an Irishman on the spit and you can always get another Irishman to turn him.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Bulls get rich, bears get rich, but pigs get slaughtered An Irishman is never at his best except when fighting.
—Irish Proverb
Nothing has changed in Russias policy. Her methods, her tactics, her maneuvers may change, but the pole starworld dominationis immutable.
—Karl Marx (1818–1883) German Philosopher, Economist
Leave a Reply