Motivational Quotes

Nations

If it were not for the government, we should have nothing to laugh at in France.

- Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

Best Quotes about Nations

I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way: by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.

Shaw, George Bernard

If there be no nobility of descent in a nation, all the more indispensable is it that there should be nobility of ascent -- a character in them that bear rule, so fine and high and pure, that as men come within the circle of its influence, they involuntarily pay homage to that which is the one pre-eminent distinction, the Royalty of Virtue.

Potter, Henry Codman

I like the English. They have the most rigid code of immorality in the world.

Bradbury, Malcolm

England can never be ruined except by a Parliament.

Burleigh, Lord

As long as learning is connected with earning, as long as certain jobs can only be reached through exams, so long must we take this examination system seriously. If another ladder to employment was contrived, much so-called education would disappear, and no one would be a penny the stupider.

Forster, Edward M.

The French complain of everything, and always.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul.

Hugo, Victor

Nations have always good reasons for being what they are, and the best of all is that they cannot be otherwise.

Custine, Marquis De

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.

Herzen, Alexander

10.

Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam.

Milton, John

11.

The whole basis of the United Nations is the right of all nations--great or small--to have weight, to have a vote, to be attended to, to be a part of the twentieth century.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

12.

It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for Wales!

Bolt, Robert

13.

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

14.

We prefer world law, in the age of self-determination, to world war in the age of mass extermination.

Kennedy, John F.

15.

The best thing I know between France and England is the sea.

Jerrold, Douglas William

16.

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.

Carter, Jimmy

17.

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts -- the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.

Ruskin, John

18.

Most nations, as well as people are impossible only in their youth; they become incorrigible as they grow older.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

19.

There's always something fishy about the French.

Coward, Noel

20.

The maxim of the British people is Business as usual.

Churchill, Winston

21.

The greatest nations have all acted like gangsters and the smallest like prostitutes.

Kubrick, Stanley

22.

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.

Lawrence, D. H.

23.

Men may be linked in friendship. Nations are linked only by interests.

Hochhuth, Rolf

24.

A people always ends by resembling its shadow.

Kipling, Rudyard

25.

Never explain yourself. Your friend don't need it and your enemies won't believe it.

26.

The less you know about a subject, the longer it takes you to explain it.

27.

A nation is not conquered which is perpetually to be conquered.

Burke, Edmund

28.

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.

Cuellar, Javier Perez De

29.

Nations do not think, they only feel. They get their feelings at second hand through their temperaments, not their brains. A nation can be brought -- by force of circumstances, not argument -- to reconcile itself to any kind of government or religion that can be devised; in time it will fit itself to the required conditions; later it will prefer them and will fiercely fight for them.

Twain, Mark

30.

I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on her.

Weil, Simone

31.

A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe.

Burton, Pierre

32.

The strength of a nation, especially of a republican nation, is in the intelligent and well ordered homes of the people.

Sigourney, Lydia

33.

If it were not for the government, we should have nothing to laugh at in France.

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

34.

The strength and power of a country depends absolutely on the quantity of good men and women in it.

Ruskin, John

35.

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.

Dulles, John Foster

36.

Do not on any account attempt to write on both sides of the paper at once.

Sellar, W. C.

37.

Switzerland is simply a large, lumpy, solid rock with a thin skin of grass stretched over it.

Twain, Mark

38.

Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy.

Disraeli, Benjamin

39.

The soil of their native land is dear to all the hearts of mankind.

Cicero, Marcus T.

40.

The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members.

Truman, Harry S

41.

China has no income tax, no unemployment and not a single soldier outside its borders.

Chou En Lai

42.

Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. [About Russia]

Churchill, Winston

43.

Nations, like men, have their infancy.

Bolingbroke, Henry

44.

Without a country, I am not a man.

Al-Sabah, Nawaf Al-Nasir

45.

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanations.

Saki

46.

It is equality of monotony which makes the strength of the British Isles.

Roosevelt, Eleanor

47.

Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe.

Burke, Edmund

48.

Russia has abolished God, but so far God has been tolerant.

Swayze, John

49.

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.

Davy, Sir Humphrey

50.

Frenchmen have an unlimited capacity for gallantry and indulge it on every occasion.

Moliere