Country Quotes - Page 211

A mental disease has swept the planet: banalization the state of affairs, arising out of a struggle against poverty, has overshot its ultimate goal-the liberation of man from material cares-and has become an obsessive image hanging over the present. Offered the choice of love or a garbage disposal, young people of all countries have chosen the garbage disposal.

Whenever I speak at the United Nations, UNICEF or elsewhere to raise awareness of the continual and rampant recruitment of children in wars around the world, I come to realize that I still do not fully understand how I could have possibly survived the civil war in my country, Sierra Leone.

Dacca is now the free capital of a free country.

You don't help a country by supporting a military regime that denies any sign of democracy, and what defeated Pakistan was its military regime.

What most people didn't realize in the Western countries is that here its not a question of having supporters, its a question of getting these votes to the polling stations.

In most of Pakistan it is a feudal country. People are very scared and oppressed by authority. But when you move to these wilder areas, they are not so easily suppressed.

I am surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it.

The history of governmentally established religion, both in England and in this country, showed that whenever government had allied itself with one particular form of religion, the inevitable result had been that it had incurred the hatred, disrespect and even contempt of those who held contrary beliefs.

An ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country.

All that is best in the great poets of all countries is not what is national in them, but what is universal.

The impious man, who sells his country's freedom Makes all the guilt of tyranny his own. His are her slaughters, her oppressions his; Just heav'n! reserve your choicest plagues for him, And blast the venal wretch.

In a debate, rather pull to pieces the argument of thy antagonists than offer him any of thy own; for thus thou wilt fight him in his own country.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

But I almost think we are all of us ghosts. It is not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that “walks” in us. It is all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we cannot shake them off. Whenever I take up a newspaper, I seem to see ghosts gliding between the lines.

I am curious about color as one would be visiting a new country, because I have never concentrated so closely on color expression. Up to now I have waited at the gates of the temple.

An optimist is merely an ex-pessimist with his pockets full of money, his digestion in good condition, and his wife in the country.

The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor.

All I really want is enough to live on, a little house in the country... and a tree in the garden with seven of my enemies hanging in it.

Children and dogs are as necessary to the welfare of the country as Wall Street and the railroads.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were political enemies, but they became fast friends. And when they passed away on the same day, the last words of one of them was, The country is safe. Jefferson still lives. And the last words of the other was, John Adams will see that things go forward.

Coal makes us sick. Oil makes us sick. It’s global warming. It’s ruining our country. It’s ruining our world.

The police had a practice of entrapping people. This was done all over the country, but we had a particularly vicious group here in Southern California because of the Hollywood situation. They knew they could get a lot of them. They were shaking down people for thousands in blackmail.

What really distinguishes this generation in all countries from earlier generations ... is its determination to act, its joy in action, the assurance of being able to change things by one's own efforts.

What are we going to do about the injuries to our country still going on right in front of our eyes? It gets me out of bed in the morning. It makes me mad enough to get my blood up and want to get out there with [Mark] Twain and get it said and that is why I still hit the road and go out on the stage and keep working at staying alive.

The first and most important impact of climate change on human civilisation will be an acute and permanent crisis of food supply. Eating regularly is a non-negotiable activity and countries that cannot feed their people are unlikely to be reasonable about it.