A Country Quotes & Sayings

Mandela has played a crucial part in history. He's done some extraordinary things, not only for his country but also for the whole world. — Zinedine Zidane

Under the rules of colonialism, everything goes to and comes from the mother country. In 1870, the colony of Turks and Caicos was asked to send a crest to England so that a flag for the colony could be designed. A Turks and Caicos designer drew a crest that included Salt Cay saltworks with salt rakers in the foreground and piles of salt. Back in England, it was the era of Arctic exploration, and, not knowing where the Turks and Caicos was, the English designer assumed the little white domes were igloos. And so he drew doors on each one. And this scene of salt piles with doors remained the official crest of the colony for almost 100 years, until replaced in 1968 by a crest featuring a flamingo. — Mark Kurlansky

The civilization of a country consists in the quality of life that is lived there, and this quality shows plainest in the things that people choose to talk about when they talk together, and in the way they choose to talk about them. — Albert J. Nock

In school I really loved Shakespeare, and I participated in a country-wide Shakespeare competition. — Aya Cash

A masterly analysis of how political interests, economic circumstances, development strategies, and local history have shaped what are surprisingly different versions of the welfare state across the developing world. The authors combine fine-grained country analyses with intelligent use of data, and explain and extend the theory and literature on the modern welfare state. The book is both scholarly and readable. — Nancy Birdsall

I think my wife has always been aware, whatever country we have been in, of my dramatic leading man status; a little too dramatic she would probably say. — Andrew Lincoln

Society can give its young men almost any job and they'll figure how to do it. They'll suffer for it and die for it and watch their friends die for it, but in the end, it will get done. That only means that society should be careful about what it asks for ... Soldiers themselves are reluctant to evaluate the costs of war, but someone must. That evaluation, ongoing and unadulterated by politics, may be the one thing a country absolutely owes the soldiers who defend its borders. — Sebastian Junger

A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor - such is my idea of happiness. — Leo Tolstoy

The Moon Pie is a bedrock of the country store and rural tradition. It is more than a snack. It is a cultural artifact. — William R. Ferris

What we also have to recognize is that the deficit levels that I'm inheriting, over a trillion dollars, coming out of last year, that that is unsustainable. At a certain point, other countries stop buying our debt, at a certain point, we'd end up having to raise interest rates, and it would end up creating more economic chaos and potentially inflation. — Barack Obama

Did anybody ever come back from the dead any single one of the millions who got killed did any one of them ever come back and say by god i'm glad i'm dead because death is always better than dishonor? did they say i'm glad i died to make the world safe for democracy? did they say i like death better than losing liberty? did any of them ever say it's good to think i got my guts blown out for the honor of my country? did any of them ever say look at me i'm dead but i died for decency and that's better than being alive? did any of them ever say here i am i've been rotting for two years in a foreign grave but it's wonderful to die for your native land? did any of them say hurray i died for womanhood and i'm happy see how i sing even though my mouth is choked with worms? — Dalton Trumbo

Give me all of you, and I'll give you back yourself when we have finished.
And in the high country she had screamed aloud in some combination of fear and pleasure. And she had done that once more in a bed in Iowa, then turned the scream into a dwindling, involuntary cry for all the things she had once felt and now felt again with another strange man who lived in his own far places. — Robert James Waller

You only have to glance at the daily news to see how passions are stirred by claims of exclusive loyalty to one's own kin, one's own clan, one's own country, and one's own church. These ties that bind are vital to our communities and our lives, but they can also be twisted into a noose. — Bill Moyers

There is a holy story that tells of a man who was fulfilled by sowing his enemy's field one night. Bjartur's story is the story of a man who sowed his enemy's field all his life, day and night. Such is the story of the most independent man in the country. Moors; more moors. From the ravine there came an eerie echoing rumble as the headstone crashed its way down, and the bitch sprang to the brink, barking wildly. — Halldor Laxness

It's important to remember there is a 20 year US. occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934. That represents a major transition in the history of the country and kind of reshaping partly in terms of just their direction of their attention. — Laurent Dubois

IT'S NOT RACIST
TO BE PROUD
OF YOUR COUNTRY!'

no, but it is fucking
stupid
to think it makes
you a better man. — Andy Carrington

Even a man accused of the worst act of terrorism ever committed in this country - especially such a man - is entitled to the best possible defense. This concept is a cornerstone of our justice system. — Stephen Jones

I feel my job as an artist is to drive people to country radio. That's my job as a country artist. So these streaming places, especially these on-demand streaming places, where you can just push a button and hear it as many times as you want, like YouTube, any of that stuff, that's taking all the ears away from country radio. — Garth Brooks

He ran his hand from my wrist up to the crook of my elbow and then to my shoulder. "When I was a little kid, my dad would come to my room at night to say a prayer with me. He used to say, 'Lord, We know there's a little girl out there who's meant for Henry. Please protect her and raise her up right.'" His voice changed to something slower and more country when he mimicked his dad. He smiled at the memory, and then he put his mouth near my ear and whispered. "You were that little girl. — Laura Anderson Kurk

I think it's really terrifying that a country based on the foundations and ideals of God, is now systematically removing God from everything. Everything! — Stephen Baldwin

I received a letter just before I left office from a man. I don't know why he chose to write it, but I'm glad he did. He wrote that you can go to live in France, but you can't become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Italy, but you can't become a German, an Italian. He went through Turkey, Greece, Japan and other countries. But he said anyone, from any corner of the world, can come to live in the United States and become an American. — Ronald Reagan

When I was going to college, there were probably four colleges in the nation that offered a major in meteorology. I wasn't fortunate enough to be in a part of the country where that was readily accessible. I have been doing weather since I graduated from college. I feel solid about what I'm doing. — Sam Champion

I'm sure some of the things I went through pale in comparison to what some of the guys went through in World War II and other conflicts. On top of all the shit they went through in Vietnam, they had to come home to a country that spat on them. — Chris Kyle

Cosmopolitanism gives us one country, and it is good; nationalism gives us a hundred countries, and every one of them is the best. Cosmopolitanism offers a positive, patriotism a chorus of superlatives. Patriotism begins the praise of the world at the nearest thing, instead of beginning it at the most distant, and thus it insures what is, perhaps, the most essential of all earthly considerations, that nothing upon earth shall go without its due appreciation. Wherever there is a strangely-shaped mountain upon some lonely island, wherever there is a nameless kind of fruit growing in some obscure forest, patriotism insures that this shall not go into darkness without being remembered in a song. — G.K. Chesterton

Bosnia is a complicated country: three religions, three nations and those 'others'. Nationalism is strong in all three nations; in two of them there are a lot of racism, chauvinism, separatism; and now we are supposed to make a state out of that. — Alija Izetbegovic

Came Honker's trip to Slice City along about then: our sax-man got a neck all full of the sharpest kind of steel. So we were out one horn. And you could tell: we played a little bit too rough, and the head-arrangements Collins and His Crew grew up to, they needed Honker's grease in the worst way. But we'd been together for five years or more, and a new man just didn't play somehow. We were this one solid thing, like a unit, and somebody had cut off a piece of us and we couldn't grow the piece back so we just tried to get along anyway, bleeding every night, bleeding from that wound. ("Black Country") — Charles Beaumont

President Bush offers the American people an optimistic vision and a clear choice in November. The President has provided steady leadership in remarkably changing times. He knows exactly where he wants to lead this country, and he has complete confidence in the American people. — Henry Bonilla

The Pastor had spent his boyhood in the old country and was not at all sure that hot water, stall showers and the like were necessary to salvation. In fact it was one of his notions that Americans were too clean. Rub all the natural protective oils off their skins, they do for a fact. — Budd Schulberg

It was such a dismal time in Japan. It almost seemed as if they were dying as a people, their economy in tatters, the population dwindling, the remaining citizens isolated and adrift. Had they been wrong about everything? Kenzo wondered. The power of consensus and obligation, the imperatives of racial purity and harmony? — Don Lee

The navy is like a socialist country. Efficiency isn't part of the jargon. — James W. Blinn

Coming from Morocco was just different, man. It's a third-world country, and you are trying to make it happen. That's all it is. I didn't have any problem hooking up with the black kids because I'm from North Africa. And as far as Latinos, we are all the same. — French Montana

We don't really have the ability to enforce the law with respect to illegal work in this country in a way that's truly effective ... We haven't been able to require every employer to enter a system in which they check the work status of their employees and determine whether they're legal, and without that, we don't really have the ability to enforce the law with respect to illegal work in this country in a way that's truly effective. And that would be the single greatest additional weapon we could use if we're serious about tackling this problem. — Michael Chertoff

Over the course of six decades, some six million black southerners left the land of their forefathers and fanned out across the country for an uncertain existence in nearly every other corner of America. The Great Migration would become a turning point in history. It would transform urban America and recast the social and political order of every city it touched. It would force the South to search its soul and finally to lay aside a feudal caste system. It grew out of the unmet promises made after the Civil War and, through the sheer weight of it, helped push the country toward the civil rights revolutions of the 1960s. — Isabel Wilkerson

According to historian Ellen Hammer, he (Pres. Kennedy) was, 'shaken and depressed.' to realize that, 'the first Catholic ever to become a Vietnamese chief of state was dead, assassinated as a direct result of a policy authorized by the first American Catholic president.' At one point an aide tried to console him by reminding him that Diem and Nhu had been tyrants.
'No," he replied. "They were in a difficult position.' They did the best they could for their country. — Stephen Kinzer

From the Great Depression, to the stagflation of the seventies, to the current economic crisis caused by the housing bubble, every economic downturn suffered by this country over the past century can be traced to Federal Reserve policy. The Fed has followed a consistent policy of flooding the economy with easy money, leading to a misallocation of resources and an artificial 'boom' followed by a recession or depression when the Fed-created bubble bursts. — Ron Paul

The nearer a soul is to God, the more it deserves our esteem; the closer the ties that bit it to us, the more sensible is our love for it, and the more whole-hearted should be the devotion we show in all that concerns family, country, vocation, and friendship. Thus, instead of destroying patriotism, charity exalts it, as we see in the case of St. Joan of Arc or St. Louis. — Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

The administration Ill bring is a group of men and women who are focused on whats best for America, honest men and women, decent men and women, women who will see service to our country as a great privilege and who will not stain the house. — George W. Bush

Louise was an urbanite, she preferred the gut-thrilling sound of an emergency siren slicing through the night to the noise of country birds at dawn. Pub brawls, rackety roadworks, mugged tourists, the badlands on a Saturday night - they all made sense, they were all part of the huge, dirty, torn social fabric. There was a war raging out there in the city and she was part of the fight, but the countryside unsettled her because she didn't know who the enemy was. She had always preferred North and South to Wuthering Heights. All that demented running around the moors, identifying yourself with the scenery, not a good role model for a woman. — Kate Atkinson

The rest of the journey passed uneventfully, if you consider it uneventful to ride fifteen miles on horseback through rough country at night, frequently without benefit of roads, in company with kilted men armed to the teeth, and sharing a horse with a wounded man. At least we were not set upon by highwaymen, we encountered no wild beasts, and it didn't rain. By the standards I was becoming used to, it was quite dull. — Diana Gabaldon

Foreign trade is not a replacement for foreign aid, of course, but foreign aid to a country that doesn't also engage in significant amounts of foreign trade is more likely to end up in the pockets of dictators and cronies. — Brian Behlendorf

If you fellows have been hunted from one end of the country to the other as I have been, you'll understand what a bad man's reputation is built on. I've had credit for more killings than I ever dreamt of — Doc Holliday

Our responsibility is not to chaplain the state but to call the state to repentance and to surrender to the King who is Lord. Our responsibility is to be an alternative to the state. Christians would do far more good for our country by learning not to look to DC for solutions but to the glorious Son of God, who loves us and gave himself for us and, in doing so, gave us a whole new way of life - one not shaped by the power of force but the force of the gospel. — Brian Zahnd

Right now, there's the illusion of order and civilization, but there's a tremendous amount of economic tension in this country and the educational system is constantly eroding. — Kathryn Bigelow

Personally, I'd be delighted to live in a country where happily married gay couples had closets full of assault weapons. — Glenn Reynolds

I can only say the first thing that pops into my mind is I remember, years ago, seeing kind of a has-been country singer working - when I first moved to Nashville - in a bar in a Holiday Inn. — Jimmy Buffett

Russia sees itself as a country that is self-sufficient. — Sergei Ivanov

Are we Christians in this country really changing our hearts, or do we just believe in a change of heart ... ? — Johann Baptist Metz

After a harassing warfare, prolonged by the nature of the country and by the difficulty of procuring subsistence, the Indians were entirely defeated, and the disaffected band dispersed or destroyed. The result has been creditable to the troops engaged in the service. Severe as is the lesson to the Indians, it was rendered necessary by their unprovoked aggressions, and it is to be hoped that its impression will be permanent and salutary. — Andrew Jackson

Where hunger is imposed by external circumstances, the act of starvation remains literal, a tragic biological event that does not serve metaphoric or symbolic purposes. It is only in a country where one is able to choose hunger that elective starvation may come to express cultural conflict or even social protest. — Kim Chernin

Part of building a new nation means building a spirit of tolerance, love and respect amongst the people of this country. — Nelson Mandela

The tendency to separate war stories from immigrant stories means that most Americans don't understand how many of the immigrants and refugees in the United States have fled from wars - many of which this country has had a hand in. Although — Viet Thanh Nguyen

There's lots of sides. The CD doesn't really create a mood. It creates more of a journey. It starts out with a simple bluegrass tune, sort of melancholy and sad, like "Lovin' and Lyin'," then it's sexy and there's some funny songs in there where I'm talking, like "Designated Drunk." There's a humor side, a sexy side, but there's also a pretty sad side, the country side. It's the backwards side of me! — Laura Bell Bundy

Soccer must play a socio-cultural role. We reach 1.6 billion people, thanks to the positive emotions that soccer triggers, FIFA is more influential than any country on Earth and any religion. We move masses. We want to use that to create more peace, justice and health in the world. — Pope Francis

Mitt Romney's rally in Mansfield, Ohio, on Monday began the way every political event begins. 'Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and our country's national anthem.' This is always an uncomfortable moment for me. While I sat at my laptop, most of the reporters around me stood and put their hands over their hearts. This time instead of just sitting and working, I tweeted what I was feeling: 'Ari_Shapiro: As a reporter I'm torn about joining in the pledge of allegiance/national anthem at rallies. I'm a rally observer, not a participant.' — Ari Shapiro

And from all these evils they will be delivered, and their life will be blessed as the life of Olympic victors and yet more blessed. How so? The Olympic victor, I said, is deemed happy in receiving a part only of the blessedness which is secured to our citizens, who have won a more glorious victory and have a more complete maintenance at the public cost. For the victory which they have won is the salvation of the whole State; and the crown with which they and their children are crowned is the fulness of all that life needs; they receive rewards from the hands of their country while living, and after death have an honourable burial. Yes, — Plato

From now on, nothing is impossible for Israel, which is a normal country like any other. We won't wait another half a century to sit on the Security Council. — Dan Gillerman

With courage, you can overcome the cultural shock in a visit to a new country. — Lailah Gifty Akita

You don't need as much as some of the other artists but you do sing with your eyes close and it gives the illusion that you singing in your sleep and number one places around the country, you have to have your eyes open. You can close your eyes for a certain gesture or whatever but your eyes are the mirrors of your soul ... — Maxine Powell

But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile. — Patrick O'Brian

A French Republican is a Republican who beats up on conservatives and is constantly praising the Democrats and contributing to the massive spending in this country while they go home and pretend otherwise. — Mark Levin

In time, the media was fawning over Henry Stein like Barack Obama in 2008; he represented something different. Governor Stein began holding FP rallies across the country, attracting tens of thousands of supporters, waving signs and willing to plaster their entire neighborhoods with as much propaganda as they could get their hands on. After winning two terms as governor in Florida, it became inevitable that he should be a candidate for President of the United States in 2036. Henry — James Rosone

My grandfather did not travel across 4,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this country overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. — Stephen Colbert

A faraway-father is distant from his children; not necessarily in geography, but socially - either by choice or by force. Our country has many fathers who are figuratively-forced far and away from their families. Legal force brings to bear disparate dads through such innovations as no-fault divorce, legal precedence, and post-divorce incrimination. I am one of these parents - portrayed or profiled as 'perpetrator'. — H. Kirk Rainer

Subversion can only be treason if government is legitimate. When a government has broken international law and its own internal laws it ceases to be legitimate. At that point a man of conscience and true patriotism is honor bound to take actions intended to restore legitimate government to his country. — G. Russell Overton

Global climate change is real and we have a limited time to change our behavior or live with the consequences. We can all help by making small changes in our lives to letting our voice be heard by our governing bodies. As has always been the case in this country, if the people demand change, it will come. — Kyra Sedgwick

I've grown to love Barack Obama. Hillary is no Bernie Sanders. But she's a politician, and she understands Congress. And I think with that kind of twisted beauty, she could lead our country. — Eileen Myles

VI. Hundreds of People VII. Monseigneur in Town VIII. Monseigneur in the Country IX. The Gorgon's Head X. Two Promises XI. A — Charles Dickens

Thomas Jefferson had rather serious concerns about the fate of the democratic experiment.28 He feared the rise of a new form of absolutism that was more ominous than the British rule overthrown in the American Revolution. He distinguished in his later years between what he called "aristocrats and democrats."29 And then he went on to say, "I hope we shall ... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial and bid defiance to the laws of our country."30 He also wrote, "I sincerely believe ... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."31 That's the kind of quote from a Founding Father you don't see too much. — Noam Chomsky

I really believe that when we start talking ourselves back, we'll have more to offer the world." he [Woodenkinfe] said. "I don't want a gray world."
"You mean taking back our cultures and where we come from."
"Absolutely! You want to talk about the fabric of this country, that's it."
"So rather than a melting pot, it would be a ... "
"A blanket of color, all sewn in the shape of the U.S. — Philip Caputo

I hate my country. There are so many rich people who don't share their shit. They're like spoiled little ten-year-old bullies on the playground. They hog the monkey bars and the slide and the seesaw. And if you complain even a little bit, if you try to get just one spin on the merry-go-round, the bullies beat the shit out of you. — Sherman Alexie

It never ceases to amaze me how many Christians, in the North and the South, continue to refer to the former as the "developed" and the latter as the "developing" world. When we in the South use this term to describe ourselves, we are evaluating ourselves by a set of cultural values that are alien to our own cultures, let alone to a Christian world-view! All our normative images and yardsticks of "development" are ideologically loaded. Who dictates that mushrooming TV satellite dishes and skyscrapers are signs of "development"? Who, apart from the automobile industry and the advertising agencies, seriously believes that a country with six-lane highways and multi-story car-parks is more "developed" than one whose chief mode of transport is railways? Does the fact that there are more telephones in Manhattan, New York, than in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, mean that human communication is more developed in the former than the latter? — Vinoth Ramachandra

His sisters
my aunts
did not go to school at all, just like millions of girls in my country. Education had been a great gift for him. He believed that lack of education was the root of all of Pakistan's problems. Ignorance allowed politicians to fool people and bad administrators to be re-elected. He believed schooling should be available for all, rich and poor, boys and girls. The school that my father dreamed of would have desks and a library, computers, bright posters on the walls and, most important, washrooms. — Malala Yousafzai

we seem to be on a constant quest to keep America a country of citizens who can only talk to one another — Kari Martindale

So Positive Psychology takes seriously the bright hope that if you find yourself stuck in the parking lot of life, with few and only ephemeral pleasures, with minimal gratifications, and without meaning, there is a road out. This road takes you through the countryside of pleasure and gratification, up into the high country of strength and virtue, and finally to the peaks of lasting fulfillment: meaning and purpose — Martin Seligman

I look forward to continuing to be a role model to women across the country and helping them have confidence in all they do in the ring, on the court or in the game of life! — Marlen Esparza

The question is not whether a doctrine is beautiful but whether it is true. When we wish to go to a place, we do not ask whether the road leads through a pretty country, but whether it is the right road. — Augustus Hare

Most of us, when we go out with a camera in our own country, try to find exotic subject matter to photograph. — Martin Parr

J. R. R. Tolkien, the near-universally-hailed father of modern epic fantasy, crafted his magnum opus The Lord of the Rings to explore the forces of creation as he saw them: God and country, race and class, journeying to war and returning home. I've heard it said that he was trying to create some kind of original British mythology using the structure of other cultures' myths, and maybe that was true. I don't know. What I see, when I read his work, is a man trying desperately to dream.
Dreaming is impossible without myths. If we don't have enough myths of our own, we'll latch onto those of others - even if those myths make us believe terrible or false things about ourselves. Tolkien understood this, I think because it's human nature. Call it the superego, call it common sense, call it pragmatism, call it learned helplessness, but the mind craves boundaries. Depending on the myths we believe in, those boundaries can be magnificently vast, or crushingly tight. — N.K. Jemisin

I live out in the desert, in farm country. I'm around a lot of farmers, guys with packing houses, that sort of thing. Half the time, these guys are in their pajamas or in their slippers. It's their place. — William Devane

Where are you going?" Millie whispered, although why she was whispering was a bit of a mystery since the sound of yelling, along with a lot of cursing, was flowing into the house. "I'm not just going to sit here while everyone else is fighting my battle." She made it all the way to the door, crawling on her stomach, no less, before she was forced to stop when she encountered a pair of shoes. They were nice shoes, a little dusty, and unfortunately, they belonged to none other than Bram. "You weren't trying to sneak out to help, were you?" he asked, squatting down next to her. "I might have been." "There's no need. Silas has been secured." Lucetta frowned. "He came down here on his own?" Holding out a hand, Bram helped her to her feet before he smiled. "Apparently, yes. I imagine those women he hired weren't too keen to travel the country with him. Aiding and abetting men on the run usually results in a stint behind bars, and they must have decided he wasn't worth that." "I — Jen Turano

The United States is going to be a rich country, it is going to be prosperous, but it is not going to be able to take the lead in the next phase of global economic development. — Fareed Zakaria

Unity is the only way in which the people of this country can overthrow the fascists, communists, capitalists, and all the other assholes who claim running a representative government is so difficult. The emphasis has been taken from the Bill of Rights and placed on the type of interpretation of the Constitution that best suits the people in power. — William Powell

That man sitting on the steps made me understand that I was important to the world and to the history of my country. I felt necessary, and that's the best feeling a human being can have. — Paulo Coelho

A country with two kings will always falter. — Scott Westerfeld

Daniel is asleep. A care assistant, a different one today is swishingaroundthe room with a mop that smells of pine cleaner.

Elisabeth wonders what's doing to happen to all the care assistants. She realizes she hasn't so far encountered a single care assistant here who isn't from somewhere else in the world. That morning on the radio she;d heard a spokesperson say, but it's not just that we;ve been rhetorically and practically encouraging the opposite of integration for immigrants to this country. It's that we've been rhetorically and practically encouraging ourselves not to integrate. We've been doing this as a matter of self-policing since Thatcher taught us to be selfish and not just to think but to believe that there's no such thing as society.

Then the other spokesperson in the dialogue said, well, you would say that. Get over it. Grow up. Your time's over. Democracy. You lost. — Ali Smith

One thing that's really interesting is not only the magnitude of the recent immigration into this country, but also its distribution and its investment in the country. About 9.3 percent of the population is now foreign-born [announced by the Census Bureau at over 10 percent a few days later]. What's really surprising is how well distributed those population groups are. Historically, we see new immigrants primarily on the coast and in a few big cities. I think the data are going to show a much wider distribution of the new population groups than we've experienced historically. — Kenneth Prewitt

Despite its reputation, Appalachia - especially northern Alabama and Georgia to southern Ohio - has far lower church attendance than the Midwest, parts of the Mountain West, and much of the space between Michigan and Montana. Oddly enough, we think we attend church more than we actually do. In a recent Gallup poll, Southerners and Midwesterners reported the highest rates of church attendance in the country. Yet actual church attendance is much lower in the South. — J.D. Vance

When I think about the folks who are out there at home tonight watching ... They know that this country is not respected around the world anymore. They know that this country is pushing the middle class, the hardworking taxpayers, backwards, and they saw a president who doesn't understand their pain, and doesn't have any plan for getting away from it. — Chris Christie

Russia made a decisive contribution to the victory over Nazism. That's clear to every honest observer. So, therefore, in a certain manner, it is indeed part of the country's national psyche. — Dmitry Medvedev

It's not a question we ask ourselves enough, I think; as a country, we seem to be suffering from an empathy deficit. We wouldn't tolerate schools that don't teach, that are chronically underfunded and understaffed and underinspired, if we thought that the children in them were like our children. I believe a stronger sense of empathy would tilt the balance of our current politics in favor of those who are struggling. If we fail to help, we diminish ourselves. — Barack Obama

We have an abundance of rape and violence against women in this country and on this Earth, though it's almost never treated as a civil rights or human rights issue, or a crisis, or even a pattern. Violence doesn't have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender. — Rebecca Solnit

Childhood hunger in America is as much a paradox as it is a tragedy. Why, in the wealthiest country in the world, should hunger darken the lives and dreams of 12 million children and their families? I believe that, when Americans learn the facts and understand how their involvement can make a difference, banishing childhood hunger will be a national, local and personal priority. — Martin Sheen

Hi, I have just added my new novel, "Incessant Expectations" for your reading enjoyment. It is about commercial salmon fishing on the Oregon coast circa 1976. It is fiction. The industry doesn't exist anymore. A young farmer from the dry country in Southwestern Colorado visits the wet Northwestern Oregon coast, seeking a summer job after his dad's farm is sold in the spring. He has spent his first 22 years in isolation, doing hard labor on the family farm. He knows hard work but has little social experience. During his summer of 1976 he learns about the ocean, fishing, and women. — Kenneth Fenter

According to current birthrate projections, France will be a majority Muslim country anyway in about 50 years ... I get a lot of e-mails from Americans who think that Europeans are spineless. And I think they're right. — Pat Condell

I'm persuaded today that the only way you can get into another country with a different culture from your own is to find a local partner who knows the market. Discovering this felt like small children discovering that if you put a bobby pin into an electric plug you get a shock! — Roberto Civita

The man who has grit enough to bring about the afforestation or the irrigation of a country is not less worthy of honor than its conqueror. — J. Arthur Thomson

The inability of Americans to value intellect is, to me, maddening. If someone possesses physical beauty they will not be cloistered or hidden in dark shadows. No, they are expected to be a source of pleasing scenery to others. We are not frightened in this country by beauty. We celebrate it, as we should. But what about beautiful brains, the kind that create amazing worlds out of nothing but thoughts, that can find a way to intricately bond elements of our lives that common wisdom tells us are inert? Why should anyone hide this intellect ever? No. Fuck boring financiers like Warren Buffett...there is no such thing as unnecessary beauty, physical or intellectual. — Stuart Rojstaczer

You find surprising things about the privite life of a country when you invide it — Evan Wright

The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable" ... In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning. — George Orwell

In England it is bad manners to be clever, to assert something confidently. It may be your own personal view that two and two make four, but you must not state it in a self-assured way, because this is a democratic country and others may be of a different opinion. — George Mikes