Motivational Quotes

Nations

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

Best Quotes about Nations

The only thing chicken about Israel is their soup.

Hope, Bob

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

Twain, Mark

France is the country where the money falls apart and you can't tear the toilet paper.

Wilder, Billy

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

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

The maxim of the British people is Business as usual.

Churchill, Winston

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

Swayze, John

Never explain -- your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

Hubbard, Elbert

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

Hochhuth, Rolf

10.

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

Bolt, Robert

11.

Potter, Henry Codman

12.

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.

Goldman, Emma

13.

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.

Briand, Aristide

14.

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

Moliere

15.

There's always something fishy about the French.

Coward, Noel

16.

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

Churchill, Winston

17.

The policy of Russia is changeless. Its methods, its tactics, its maneuvers may change, but the polar star of its policy, world domination, is a fixed star. [About Russia]

Marx, Karl

18.

The more I saw of foreign countries the more I loved my own.

De Delloy

19.

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

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

20.

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

21.

Without a country, I am not a man.

Al-Sabah, Nawaf Al-Nasir

22.

Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe.

Burke, Edmund

23.

The United Nations is our one great hope for a peaceful and free world.

Bunche, Ralph

24.

England can never be ruined except by a Parliament.

Burleigh, Lord

25.

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

26.

How can you govern a country with two hundred and forty six varieties of cheese?

Gaulle, Charles De

27.

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

Sellar, W. C.

28.

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

29.

Canada has never been a melting pot; more like a tossed salad.

Edinborough, Arnold

30.

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

Weil, Simone

31.

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

Kubrick, Stanley

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Burke, Edmund

35.

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

Custine, Marquis De

36.

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.

Huxley, Aldous

37.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

38.

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

Sigourney, Lydia

39.

A Country is not a mere territory; the particular territory is only its foundation. The Country is the idea which rises upon that foundation; it is the sentiment of love, the sense of fellowship which binds together all the sons of that territory.

Mazzini, Giuseppe

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Roosevelt, Eleanor

43.

The heroes of the world community are not those who withdraw when difficulties ensue, not those who can envision neither the prospect of success nor the consequence of failure -- but those who stand the heat of battle, the fight for world peace through the United Nations.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

44.

Great countries are those that produce great people.

Disraeli, Benjamin

45.

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.

46.

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.

Vico, Giambattista

47.

The trees in Siberia are miles apart, that is why the dogs are so fast. [About Russia]

Hope, Bob

48.

Nations, like men, have their infancy.

Bolingbroke, Henry

49.

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

Truman, Harry S

50.

France is a place where the money falls apart in your hands but you cannot tear the toilet paper.