Country Quotes - Page 166

You this day, gentlemen, assume new characters, enter into new relations, and consequently incur new duties. You have, by the favor of Providence and the attention of your friends, received a public education, the purpose whereof hath been to qualify you the better to serve your Creator and your country.

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.

I don't care how little your country is, you got a right to run it like you want to. When the big nations quit meddling then the world will have peace.

One must not allow oneself to skid down to isolationism and unbridled economic egoism. ... The second possible mistake would be excessive interference into the economic life of the country. And the absolute faith into the all-mightiness of the state.

It is no accident that I mention our American friends, as they are always influencing our relations with our neighbors either directly or behind the scenes. Sometimes you don't even know who to talk to - the governments of certain countries or directly to their American patrons.

The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.

A country of inveterate, backwoods, thick-headed, egotistic philistines

To me, England is past its sell-by date. It's not the country I grew up in.

California is now a valuable touchstone to the country, a warning of what not to do. Rarely has a single generation inherited so much natural wealth and bounty from the investment and hard work of those more noble now resting in our cemeteries-and squandered that gift within a generation.

It's easy to say, let's go in and get the bad guys. But you have a divided country of Sunnis and Shias. The United States goes and takes action there on behalf of the Iraqi government. You've got Iran coming in and saying we're going to stand with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, so now we're aligning ourselves with Iran, and if we do air strikes, becoming de facto air force for them.

It’s bad enough . . . when a country gets colonized, but when the people do as well! That’s the end, really, that’s the end.

The WWII generation shares so many common values: duty, honor, country, personal responsibility and the marriage vow " For better or for worse--it was the last generation in which, broadly speaking, marriage was a commitment and divorce was not an option

When Congress votes for all sorts of benefits, without voting for enough taxes to pay for them, they get the support of those who have been promised the benefits, without getting grief from the taxpayers. It's strictly win-win as far as the welfare-state politicians are concerned. But it is strictly lose-lose, big-time, for the country, as deficits skyrocket.

When my country, into which I had just set my foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir. It was time for every man to stir.

Some men look at Constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in Government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead.

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.

We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.

Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular.

Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite public agents to corruption, plunder and waste.

The people of every country are the only safe guardians of their own rights, and are the only instruments which can be used for their destruction. And certainly they would never consent to be so used were they not deceived. To avoid this they should be instructed to a certain degree.

Most codes extend their definitions of treason to acts not really against one's country. They do not distinguish between acts against the government, and acts against the oppressions of the government. The latter are virtues, yet have furnished more victims to the executioner than the former. Real treasons are rare; oppressions frequent. The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries.

Ram, ass, and horse, my Kyrnos, we look over With care, and seek good stock for good to cover; And yet the best men make no argument, But wed, for money, runts of poor descent. So too a woman will demean her state And spurn the better for the richer mate. Money's the cry. Good stock to bad is wed And bad to good, till all the world's cross-bred. No wonder if the country's breed declines- Mixed metal, Kyrnos, that but dimly shines.

Short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things.

We have room in this country for but one flag, the Stars and Stripes!

I have come to a still, but not a deep center, A point outside the glittering current; My eyes stare at the bottom of a river, At the irregular stones, iridescent sandgrains, My mind moves in more than one place, In a country half-land, half-water. I am renewed by death, thought of my death, The dry scent of a dying garden in September, The wind fanning the ash of a low fire. What I love is near at hand, Always, in earth and air.