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
I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on her.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
The French complain of everything, and always.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
A nation is the same people living in the same place.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It’s a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity.
—Jimmy Carter (1924–2024) 39th US President, Humanitarian
If nations always moved from one set of furnished rooms to another—and always into a better set—things might be easier, but the trouble is that there is no one to prepare the new rooms. The future is worse than the ocean—there is nothing there. It will be what men and circumstances make it.
—Alexander Herzen (1812–70) Russian Revolutionary, Writer
I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way: by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
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
A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.
—Aristide Briand (1862–1932) French Prime Minister
Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
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
In every particular state of the world, those nations which are strongest tend to prevail over the others; and in certain marked peculiarities the strongest tend to be the best.
—Walter Bagehot (1826–77) English Economist, Journalist
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
There is always something new out of Africa.
—Pliny the Elder (23–79CE) Roman Statesman, Scholar
In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940) Lithuanian-American Anarchist, Feminist
It is equality of monotony which makes the strength of the British Isles.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American First Lady, Diplomat, Humanitarian
It is true that men themselves made this world of nations… but this world without doubt has issued from a mind often diverse, at times quite contrary, and always superior to the particular ends that men had proposed to themselves.
—Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) Italian Philosopher, Rhetorician, Jurist
I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
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, Satirist, Short Story Writer
Frenchmen have an unlimited capacity for gallantry and indulge it on every occasion.
—Moliere (1622–73) French Playwright
In the youth of a state, arms do flourish; in the middle age, learning; and then both of them together for a time; in the declining age, mechanical arts and merchandise.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.
—Samuel Smiles (1812–1904) British Author, Reformer
Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts, the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others, but of the three the only trustworthy one is the last.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
God made the country and man made the town.
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
A nation’s character is the sum of its splendid deeds; they constitute one common patrimony, the nation’s inheritance. They awe foreign powers, they arouse and animate our own people.
—Henry Clay (1777–1852) American Politician
The wealth and prosperity of the country are only the comeliness of the body, the fullness of the flesh and fat; but the spirit is independent of them; it requires only muscle, bone and nerve for the true exercise of its functions. We cannot lose our liberty, because we cannot cease to think.
—Humphry Davy (1778–1829) British Chemist, Science Propagandist
The strength and power of a country depends absolutely on the quantity of good men and women in it.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
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
Territory is but the body of a nation.—The people who inhabit its hills and valleys are its soul, its spirit, its life.
—James A. Garfield (1831–81) American Head of State, Lawyer, Educator
There was never a nation great until it came to the knowledge that it had nowhere in the world to go for help.
—Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) American Essayist, Novelist
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