Blocs Quotes & Sayings

The particular feature of Berlin - well, all you need to do is look at the map: the geographical position of the city right in the heart of Europe, and the separation of the most powerful two blocs we've ever had in history, which went all the way through Germany. — Markus Wolf

In really hard times the rules of the game are altered. The inchoate mass begins to stir. It becomes potent, and when it strikes, it strikes with incredible emphasis. Those are the rare occasions when a national will emerges from the scattered, specialized, or indifferent blocs of voters who ordinarily elect the politicians. Those are for good or evil the great occasions in a nation's history. — Walter Lippmann

The military-strategic dimensions of world order were, in American thinking, inseparable from the economic dimensions. US planners viewed the establishment of a freer and more open international economic system as equally indispensable to the new order they were determined to construct from the ashes of history's most horrific conflict. Experience had instructed them, Secretary of State Cordell Hull recalled, that free trade stood as an essential prerequisite for peace. The autarky, closed trading blocs, and nationalistic barriers to foreign investment and currency convertibility that had characterized the depression decade just encouraged interstate rivalry and conflict. A — Robert J. McMahon

For many, to live in a universe that may have no purpose, and no creator, is unthinkable. — Lawrence M. Krauss

We are returning to the archaic, that is, the eternal condition of mankind, which the brief parenthesis of 'modernity' made us forget, in other words, the rivalry of peoples, of ethnic and cultural blocs and of civilisations. — Guillaume Faye

I think growing up in a small town is a good foundation for anyone who decides to enter politics. You get to know people as individuals, not as blocs or members of special interest groups. — Ronald Reagan

All of this would quickly make military considerations in the Middle East subordinate to political ones, and move the decision-making process away from military officers in the field to diplomats and politicians huddled in staterooms. If the chief distinguishing characteristic of the former had been their ineptitude, at least their intent had been clear; with the rise of the statesmen, and with different power blocs jockeying for advantage, all was about to become shrouded in treachery and byzantine maneuver. — Scott Anderson

There is an opportunity to consolidate the North American region as a more competitive region, a more productive region that will be more competitive than other blocs that have integrated in the rest of the world. — Enrique Pena Nieto

My brother thinks it is very, very bad that I left Islam. My half-sister wants to convert me back; I want to convert her to Western values. My mum is terrified that when I die, and we all go to God, I will be burned. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Over time, we amass limiting beliefs about how life supposedly is - beliefs that are not valid. Then we allow these limiting beliefs to stop us from fully living our happiest lives. — Karen Salmansohn

In the melting pot that is America, inclusive trumps exclusive. Whether it's single women, young adults, or minorities, alienating the rapidly growing voting blocs is not smart politics. — Eliot Spitzer

The world is not going into concentric blocs of power. It is actually going into a diffusion of power with more centres of decision-making than ever in human civilisation. That requires you to place yourself in far more hubs of power than ever before. — William Hague

The only reason that you're conscious right now is because I don't want to carry you. — Jack Bauer

Isn't that strange? To be able to feel so much tenderness for a person, and I did, and powerful attraction, sometimes, and yet feel no love. It seems cruel, almost monstrous. I mean I can love a bug. I have watched a spider weaving her web in the evening, in the young alder branches along the river, and I have loved her. Truly. Or a small moth trying to beat her way off the water of a dark pool, her soaked wings stuck to the surface as if by glue. And gently slid a leaf beneath her and lifted her to the ground, praying that her wings would dry without damage. I've done that. And yet I could not love my wife. — Peter Heller

As long as the problem of world reconstruction remains the center of interest for all nations, blocs having similar attitudes will form and operate even within the League itself. — Hjalmar Branting

When it starts to seem like you have popped into bed with a specific party, it makes it difficult for people to believe you are not doing someone else's bidding for them. — Rachel Maddow

Mommy and Daddy make a lot of noise when they kiss. Mommy talks to God a lot. I talk to God sometimes too. I asked him for a puppy and a new monster truck but I was nice and didn't yell at him like Mommy does. He still hasn't gotten me the puppy though. — Tara Sivec

I'm more attracted to the bad guys. Why? Because in real life, I don't know any good guys. I know okay guys. I know polite guys. I know people who can control themselves. — Vincent Cassel

I'm beginning to think that the world is divided into two kinds of men: those you can marry and don't want to; those you want to marry and can't. — Samuel Taylor

History has often showed us the strength of the forces that are unleashed by the yearning for freedom. It moved people to overcome their fears and openly confront dictators such as in East Germany and Eastern Europe about 22 years ago. [ ... ] The yearning for freedom cannot be contained by walls for long. It was this yearning that brought down the Iron Curtain that divided Germany and Europe, and indeed the world, into two blocs. — Angela Merkel

I would come back to public school for usually about half the year. It was actually better for me to be out of school a lot, because I was two years younger than everybody, which is a bad situation, socially. — Harry Shearer

Nations are political and military entities, and so are blocs of nations. But it doesn't necessarily follow from this that they are also the basic, salient entities of economic life or that they are particularly useful for probing the mysteries of economic structure, the reasons for rise and decline of wealth. Indeed, the failure of national governments and blocs of nations to force economic life to do their bidding suggests some sort of essential irrelevance. — Jane Jacobs

Pretty soon, we should see a few large regional blocs dominating global trade. The ones that lower trade barriers faster will grow faster. — Daniel Altman

I think that you get the mood of a song stronger if you get it right that way. On the other hand, you put some songs out live and they don't catch flight. They just flop. It is hard to tell until they are out there. — Peter Gabriel

Even in pre-independence Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as it was once known, school and college enrolment among Tamils exceeded that of other ethnicities in the country. Gradually, differences in educational attainment came to form the identities of the Tamil and Sinhalese communities, which grew into separate ethnic blocs, each of which considered itself wronged by the other. — Rohini Mohan

The religious right is one of the most politically militant voting blocs in the country and the agenda is clear (a gun in every uterus). Time we stopped subsidizing the anti-abortion movement in the form of tax-exemptions. — Quentin R. Bufogle

Strong states and blocs of strong states are the only source of power and legitimacy capable of driving an international agenda in today's world. — Ian Bremmer

There is no reason why agreement on particular points should not be both possible and advantageous to the so-called neutrals and to one or more of the blocs, either existing or in the process of formation, within the League of Nations. — Hjalmar Branting

I believed it would succeed. It was Polish Solidarity and its victory that put an end to the old era when what mattered were borders and rival blocs. — Lech Walesa

The language of Mexicans springs from abysmal extremes of power and impotence, domination and resentment. — Carlos Fuentes

We send our [peacekeepers] off to some disputed zone, full of local intrigue and power blocs and uncertainty and danger, and they are supposed to save lives not with their weapons, but through their competence and their character. And they do it. — Romeo LeBlanc

I announce the resignation of the government, perhaps as the only way for Lebanon's main political blocs to assume their responsibilities and come together to pull Lebanon out of an unknown tunnel. — Najib Mikati

He who improves an opportunity sows a seed which will yield fruit in opportunity for himself and others. — Orison Swett Marden

I appeal to the responsibility of the blocs and the major powers, not to seek security in the arms race, but rather in a meeting for joint disarmament and arms limitations. — Gustav Heinemann

Organizational structures that allow divisions and departments to own their turf and people with long tenure to take root creates the same hardened group distinctions as Congressional redistricting to produce homogeneous voting blocs - all of which makes it easier to resist compromise, let alone collaboration. — Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Yes, the South-becoming always poorer-and the North-becoming always richer ... Richer, too in the resources of weapons with which the superpowers and blocs can mutually threaten each other. In the light of Christ's words (Mt. 25), this poor South will judge the rich North. And the poor people and poor nations-poor in different ways, not only lacking food, but also deprived of freedom and other human right-will judge those people who take these goods away from them, amassing to themselves the imperialist monopoly and political supremacy at the expense of others. — Pope John Paul II

It was a BuSab axiom that all power blocs tended toward aristocratic forms, that the descendants of decision makers dominated the power niches. — Frank Herbert

Imagine if [Juliet] woke up and he was still alive, but ... " She swallowed, waiting out a tremor in her voice. "But [Romeo] had killed her whole family. And burned her city. And killed and enslaved her people. — Laini Taylor

Irrespective of todays judgment and the price we had to pay in this generation, we were able to close an epoch of divisions, different blocs and borders, opening the way for an era of globalization. — Lech Walesa

Since the heady days of the 2009 Inauguration, middle-class independents have grown increasingly distant from Obama. Working-class voters - always more enamored of Clinton - have grown even more wary and distrustful of the Chicagoan. Both voting blocs pose the danger of serious defection in 2012. Without their support, Obama cannot win. — Douglas Wilder