Treaty Quotes & Sayings

In this Treaty, King Charles the Simple in exchange for the Viking's loyalty and pledge of feudal allegiance, gave the city of Rouen and the area of what is present-day Upper Normandy to Rollo and his men in what established the Duchy of Normandy, named from the Frankish word for the Viking Men of the North, or Northmen - Normanii. — Njord Kane

Benito Mussolini had barely seized power in Italy before the Vatican made an official treaty with him ... Catholicism became the only recognized religion in Italy ... and in return urged its followers to vote for Mussolini's party. Pope Pius XI described [Mussolini] as 'a man sent by providence.' ... Across southern Europe, the church was a reliable ally in the instatement of fascist regimes ... — Christopher Hitchens

We sold ourselves for love but now we are free
I'm so sorry for that ghost I made you be
Only one of us was real and that was me — Leonard Cohen

sold to the public on false pretenses, high officials confessing to ordering torture in violation of treaty and domestic law, and an economic meltdown even former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan acknowledges involved massive fraud - and no one has been prosecuted, no one has gone to prison, and Americans continue to dutifully cast their votes for the Democratic/Republican duopoly responsible for these disasters. — Barry Eisler

Lives should never be down to mere words, but I suppose they always are. Whether declarations of war, law, or treaty ... words ever determine lives. — Leanna Renee Hieber

Our unalterable resolution would be to be free. They have attempted to subdue us by force, but God be praised! in vain. Their arts may be more dangerous then their arms. Let us then renounce all treaty with them upon any score but that of total separation, and under God trust our cause to our swords. — Samuel Adams

String Reprise / Treaty

I wish there was a treaty we could sign
It's over now, the water and the wine
We were broken then but now we're borderline
And I wish there was a treaty,
I wish there was a treaty between your love and mine — Leonard Cohen

We will not leave the Golan Heights, not even in exchange for a peace treaty. We will be ready for a limited compromise and it does not have to be in territorial terms. — Yitzhak Rabin

The Second World War took place not so much because no one won the First, but because the Versailles Treaty did not acknowledge this truth. — Paul Johnson

Signing a treaty is a declaration by a state that it intends to be bound by the treaty. — Jack Donnelly

He was then in his fifty-fourth year, when even in the case of poets reason and passion begin to discuss a peace treaty and usually conclude it not very long afterwards. — Georg C. Lichtenberg

There is between sleep and us something like a pact, a treaty with no secret clauses, and according to this convention it is agreed that, far from being a dangerous, bewitching force, sleep will become domesticated and serve as an instrument of our power to act. We surrender to sleep, but in the way that the master entrusts himself to the slave who serves him. — Maurice Blanchot

The fantastic political and economic burdens imposed by that treaty have entirely disillusioned the German people and annihilated its belief in justice. — Adolf Hitler

Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it is not enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. We would have to march into Washington and sign the treaty in the White House. — Isoroku Yamamoto

Indeed cocktail parties are death as I am sure 99 per cent of DS colleagues would agree. Whoever it was who suggested an international treaty banning National Day receptions should be canonised. — S.J. Parris

The problem was that Panama technically belonged to Colombia, which refused to sign a treaty leasing it to the United States. So Roosevelt sent a gunboat filled with marines down to Panama, just on the off chance that a revolution might suddenly break out, and darned if one didn't, two days later. Not only that, but the leaders of the new nation of Panama-talk about lucky breaks!-were absolutely thrilled to have the United States build a canal there. 'Really, it's our pleasure,' they told the marines, adding, 'Don't shoot.' — Dave Barry

Why should this war in the West be fought for the restoration of Poland? The Poland of the Versailles Treaty will never rise again. — Adolf Hitler

In 1849 he had forty-six chieftains sign a treaty in which they declared themselves subjects of the queen. The Crown has had right of preemption for land sales ever since. — Sarah Lark

What's a treaty? It's a piece of paper. An agreement means nothing in itself. It's the power to force others to comply with that agreement - that's all that counts. That's the sham of this whole thing."
- General Marsh — S.J. Kincaid

Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed, and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all other citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof. — John Adams

People don't like land mines, especially the survivors and the people who are living in the countries with them, ... They think they are cowardly, like we do, so I think it's down to the governments to actually just listen to the people and sign the treaty and get rid of all these things and there would be an end to it. — Paul McCartney

The Kyoto Treaty wasn't perfect, but we signed it, in fact, helped to draft it. And I'm very proud of it, it was the world's first commitment to doing something comprehensive on greenhouse gases and trying to reduce global warming before we do irreversible damage to many civilizations around the world. — William J. Clinton

I pay tribute to John Major's achievement in persuading the other 11 Community heads of government that they could move ahead to the social chapter but not within the Treaty and without Britain's participation. It sets a vital precedent, for an enlarged Community can only function if we build in flexibility of that kind. John Major deserves high praise for ensuring at Maastricht that we would not have either a single currency or the absurd provisions of the social chapter forced upon us: our industry, workforce and national prosperity will benefit as a result. — Margaret Thatcher

All nuclear weapon states should now recognize that this is so, and declare - in Treaty form - that they will never be the first to use nuclear weapons. This would open the way to the gradual, mutual reduction of nuclear arsenals, down to zero. — Joseph Rotblat

Some people think that our planet is suffering from a fever. Now scientists are telling us that Mars is experiencing its own planetary warming: Martian warming. This has led some people, not necessarily scientists, to wonder if Mars and Jupiter, non signatories to the Kyoto Treaty, are actually inhabited by alien SUV-driving industrialists. — Fred Thompson

It doesn't matter what the terms are, just that there are terms. It's the goodwill that matters. When that runs out, the treaty is broken, whatever the terms say. — Hilary Mantel

The market-based legal order of the Brussels bureaucracy helped to fill the legal vacuum created by communism, and was warmly received on that account. But, because of the unwise provisions of the Treaty of Rome regarding freedom of movement, it has led to the mass emigration of the professional classes, and to the loss of the educated young from countries that stand desperately in need of them. The 'enlargement' agenda has therefore become controversial all across Europe, and I return to the controversy in what follows. — Roger Scruton

A great many people in North America believe that Canada and the United States, in a moment of inexplicable generosity, gave treaty rights to Native people as a gift. Of course, anyone familiar with the history of Indians in North America knows that Native people paid for every treaty right, and in some cases, paid more than once. The idea that either country gave First Nations something for free is horseshit. — Thomas King

Kennedy was president for only 1,037 days, but during his short tenure, he achieved much. At the Cold War's most dangerous hour, he preserved the peace. He improved relations with the Soviet Union and replaced tension over Berlin with a limited test ban treaty. — Gretchen Rubin

America has lost the moral high ground with the rest of the world, and we have fewer allies as a result. President Bush and his administration have undermined the war on terror by using tactics outlawed by international treaty and condemned by even our closest friends. — John Olver

The 'nations,' as they are called, with whom our pretended ambassadors, secretaries, presidents, and senators profess to make treaties, are as much myths as our own. On general principles of law and reason, there are no such 'nations.' ... Our pretended treaties, then, being made with no legitimate or bona fide nations, or representatives of nations, and being made, on our part, by persons who have no legitimate authority to act for us, have intrinsically no more validity than a pretended treaty made by the Man in the Moon with the king of the Pleiades. — Lysander Spooner

Most of what needs to be changed in the euro zone can be done without treaty changes. The demand for treaty change is as political as it is legal and I don't think it's going to happen soon. — Nick Clegg

Because love stands above Darkness and Light.
Because love is not sex or a shared faith, or "the joint maintenance of a household and the upbringing of children."
Because love is also Power.
And Light and Darkness, people and Others, morality and law, the Ten Commandments and the Great Treaty have damn all to do with it. — Sergei Lukyanenko

She shook her head in admiration. "You've thought of everything," she said. But Will looked up at her and shook his head solemnly.
"I doubt it," he said. "No matter how thoroughly you plan, no matter how much you think you know, you've never thought of everything. — John Flanagan

After the Versailles treaty, the U.S. could have chosen to become a global economic loan shark, but we didn't, and let a lot of the tab slide. So not all lending and borrowing is bad. — Louis Navellier

Fuck you,' Samuel said as he stole the ball, drove down the court, and went in for a two-handed, rattle-the-foundations, ratify-a-treaty, abolish-income-tax, close-the-uranium-mines monster dunk. — Sherman Alexie

We could make a treaty without a marriage."
"No," he said.
"You are sure?"
"Yes," he said. — Megan Whalen Turner

What I really think is that our current model of copyright is fundamentally broken. We badly need to replace it with a different system for remunerating creators, which gets it the hell out of the face of the public (who were never aware of it to begin with in the pre-internet dead tree era). Unfortunately, the current copyright model is enshrined in international trade treaty law, making it almost impossible to work around. — Charles Stross

I want a president who'll look out for American interests. Every treaty we sign has a provision that a president of the United States , if he or she concludes that it's no longer in the interest of the country should step back from it. — Lindsey Graham

Nector [speaking to Bernadette] could have told her, having drunk down the words of Nanapush, that comfort is not security and money in the hand disappears. He could have told her that only the land matters and never to let go of the papers, the titles, the tracks of the words, all those things that his ancestors never understood how the vital relationship to the dirt and grass under their feet. — Louise Erdrich

There can be no justification to admit, in any way, the use of armed forced to intervene in the internal affairs of a WTO [Warsaw Treaty Organization] member country. The solving of domestic problems belongs exclusively to the Party and people of each country and any kind of interference can only do harm to the cause of socialism, friendship and collaboration among the socialist countries. — Nicolae Ceausescu

Technically, Japan and South Korea normalized their diplomatic ties 50 years ago, but this wasn't included in the Normalization Treaty because forced prostitution, coerced sex just was taboo to even talk about. — Elise Hu

Wolsey always said that the making of a treaty is the treaty. It doesn't matter what the terms are, just that there are terms. It's the goodwill that matters. When that runs out, the treaty is broken, whatever the terms say. It is the processions that matter, the exchange of gifts, the royal games of bowls, the tilts, jousts and masques; these are not preliminaries to the process, they are the process itself. — Hilary Mantel

The dey of Algiers took the occasion of the War of 1812 to renege on his treaty obligations with the United States; — Adrian Tinniswood

If Margaret Thatcher had been Prime Minister at the time, there would have been no Treaty of Maastricht. — Douglas Hurd

My birthday was right around the corner. I'd be seventeen and have my full power, and then I'd see that Narco hothead again. Treaty Act my ass. ~ Dez Harkly — Trisha Wolfe

The mayor finishes the dreary Treaty of Treason and motions for Peeta and me to shake hands. His are as solid and warm as those loaves of bread. Peeta looks me right in the eye and gives my hand what I think is meant to be a reassuring squeeze. Maybe it's just a nervous spasm.
We turn back the crowd as the anthem of Panem plays.
Oh well, I think. There will be twenty-four of us. Odds are someone else will kill him before I do.
Of course, the odds have not been very dependable of late. — Suzanne Collins

In addition to the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, which is crucial to U.S. interests both domestically and in the Middle East, the U.S. has had and will continue to need Egypt's collaboration in the war on terrorism. — Ahmed Zewail

It was also during my tenure of office that the Japanese Government agreed to the conclusion of a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and signed it, pursuing a policy in harmony with the avowed desire of the people. — Eisaku Sato

Attraction and chemistry don't follow any logical rules. You're not the prettiest girl I've ever met, nor the smartest, nor the funniest. But you are the girl I've altered a peace treaty for, and you are the girl I'm spending the evening with. — Laura Thalassa

No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat. — Sophocles

Dead men are not friends to living men, and give them no gifts. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Even when you sign a treaty like I think [Richard] Nixon did, the anti-ballistic missile treaty, George W. Bush reneged on it. He got out of. So any treaty can be withdrawn from. — Jerry Brown

The soldiers did go away and their towns were torn down; and in the Moon of Falling Leaves (November), they made a treaty with Red Cloud that said our country would be ours as long as grass should grow and water flow. — Black Elk

The admitted right of a government to prevent the influx of elements hostile to its internal peace and security may not be questioned, even where there is not treaty stipulation on the subject. — Grover Cleveland

Agreements. Specifically, a treaty ratified by all the orders of whimsical like forms who dwell here that affords a measure of security for mortal caretakers. In a world where mortal man has become the dominant force, most creatures of enchantment have fled to refuges like this one. — Brandon Mull

What treaty that the whites have kept has the red man broken? Not one. — Sitting Bull

If I write in my name to the agents of England and France residing in Asia and inform them that Japan is ready to make a commercial treaty with their countries, the number of steamers will be reduced from fifty to two or three. — Townsend Harris

The European Union Treaty ... within a few years will lead to the creation of what the founding fathers of modern Europe dreamed of after the war, the United States of Europe. — Helmut Kohl

It is accordance with our determination to refrain from aggression and build up a sentiment and practice among nations more favorable to peacethat we have incurred the consent of fourteen important nations to the negotiation of a treaty condemning recourse to war, renouncing it as an instrument of national policy. — Calvin Coolidge

Some years back Richard Nixon warned the American people
that Russia was bad because she had not kept any treaty or
agreement signed with her. You can trust the Communists, the
saying went, to be Communists.
Indian people laugh themselves sick when they hear these
statements. America has yet to keep one Indian treaty or agreement
despite the fact that the United States government signed
over four hundred such treaties and agreements with Indian
tribes. It would take Russia another century to make and break
as many treaties as the United States has already violated. — Vine Deloria Jr.

The term SAT is a set of initials, or autonym, standing for Scholastic Attitude Treaty Organization. — Dave Barry

The idea seems to be to use the next treaty talks to strike a grand bargain: Britain will be helpful to those states wishing to establish a fiscal union among themselves if, in exchange, we can amicably derogate from the aspects of the EU which we dislike. — Daniel Hannan

As the old Ranger adage went If a person doesn't expect to see someone, odds are he won't. — John Flanagan

When Headmaster Conrady pointed out the white clapboard chapel, I wondered whether there might be at least one structure with a softer name, like Church of the Good Shepherd or Chapel of the Non-Weapon-Bearing Angels. No such luck. Armistice Chapel was a place of peace, but only if you signed the treaty and sat at attention. — Clare Vanderpool

The President wishes the Japanese to be very prudent about the introduction of opium, and if a treaty is made, he wishes that opium may be strictly prohibited. — Townsend Harris

We've seen their kind before. The terrorists are the heirs to fascism. They have the same wield of power, the same disdain for the individual, the same mad global ambitions. And they will be dealt with in just the same way. Like all fascists, the terrorists can not be appeased. They must be defeated. This struggle will not end in a truce or a treaty. It will end in victory for the United States, our friends and for the cause of freedom. — George W. Bush

Because they will want me in Edinburgh to make sure that the Scottish king holds to the new alliance with England. They'll want me to hold him in friendship with Henry. They'll think that if I am queen in Scotland then James will never invade my son-in-law's kingdom." "And?" I whisper. "They're wrong," she says vengefully. "They're so very wrong. The day that I am Queen of Scotland with an army to command and a husband to advise, I won't serve Henry Tudor. I won't persuade my husband to keep a peace treaty with Henry. If I were strong enough and could command the allies I would need, I would march against Henry Tudor myself, come south with an army of terror. — Philippa Gregory

When they got to Oklahoma there were still more white people waiting for them, squatting on the land the Indians had been promised in the latest worthless treaty. Slow learners, the bunch. — Colson Whitehead

The new naval treaty permits the United States to spend a billion dollars on warships - a sum greater than has been accumulated by all our endowed institutions of learning in their entire history. Unintelligence could go no further! ... [In Great Britain, the situation is similar.] ... Until the figures are reversed, ... nations deceive themselves as to what they care about most. — Abraham Flexner

The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism is hostile to religion is a lie. — Adolf Hitler

Carbon dioxide does not cause or contribute to smog, and the Kyoto treaty would do nothing to reduce or prevent smog. — Stephen Harper

And if they break their pledges -after the treaty they have made with you- and assail your religion, then fight the heads of disbelief - Lo! They are indeed not entitled to any binding oath. — Qur'an

This peace treaty, which will be broken as Russia and the listed Muslim nations invade and attempt to annihilate Israel, is not the later peace treaty that Daniel prophesied (Daniel 9:27) will be signed by the Antichrist with Israel. The second end times peace treaty will be broken by the Antichrist during the Tribulation. — John Price

In order to break the treaty, we have to learn to ask for and then, just as crucially, accept help. First, though, it is important to understand ourselves, and to discover what it is that we need. Habits set up over a lifetime may be hard to break but, certainly, it is easier once you have identified them. — Sally Brampton

The only constitutional exception to the power of making treaties is, that it shall not change the Constitution. ... On natural principles, a treaty, which should manifestly betray or sacrifice primary interests of the state, would be null. — Alexander Hamilton

Without Thomas Jefferson and his Declaration of Independence, there would have been no American revolution that announced universal principles of liberty. Without his participation by the side of the unforgettable Marquis de Lafayette, there would have been no French proclamation of The Rights of Man. Without his brilliant negotiation of the Louisiana treaty, there would be no United States of America. Without Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, there would have been no Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, and no basis for the most precious clause of our most prized element of our imperishable Bill of Rights - the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. — Christopher Hitchens

We assess that there is no significant threat to the UK from nuclear weapons at present, but developments continue to be monitored closely. We remain committed to limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons through our international treaty obligations, and national programmes. — Geoff Hoon

Monsanto actually emerged as a war chemicals industry. It is known for Agent Orange, and for toxics. It wasn't ever in seed and agriculture. This is a recent entry, because they realized controlling the seed means controlling the entire food chain and the profits they can make from that are so much more than they can make at any other level. So in a way they brought war to our farmlands. They brought war against our farmers. The economics of it are first and foremost the economics of a monopoly, created by a highly undemocratic, international trade treaty, which brought clauses on control over the seed. — John Robbins

Everything we did was done in form and with propriety, and the result of our proceedings is the document [the Quebec Resolutions] that has been submitted to the imperial government as well as to this house and which we speak of here as a treaty. And that there may be no doubt about our position in regard to that document we say, question it you may, reject it you may, or accept it you may, but alter it you may not. (Hear, hear. — Thomas D'Arcy McGee

Raeder, the political admiral, stealthily built up the German Navy in defiance of the Versailles Treaty, and then put it to use in a series of aggressions which he had taken a leading part in planning. — Erich Raeder

France and Italy have not yet signed this treaty or agreed to naval limitation as between those nations, but I have confidence that in time they will do so. — Frank B. Kellogg

In 1907, Britain and Russia signed a treaty dividing Iran between them; no Iranian was at the negotiations or even knew they were taking place. — Stephen Kinzer

The peace process we all aim for will not necessarily be a result of the mere signing of a treaty or agreement. It must become a matter of our everyday lives, so that peace settles and lasts and becomes supported by everybody. We therefore have to give peace all the required care and preserve it and promote it. — Hassan II Of Morocco

I could wish there were a treaty made between the French and the English theatres, in which both parties should make considerableconcessions. The English ought to give up their notorious violations of the unities, and all their massacres, racks, dead bodies, and mangled carcasses, which they so frequently exhibit upon their stage. The French should engage to have more action, and less declamation, and not to cram and to crowd things together to almost a degree of impossibility from a too scrupulous adherence to the unities. — Lord Chesterfield

Hinkle, having made a treaty with the mob on his own responsibility, to carry out his treachery, marched the troops out of the city, and the brethren gave up their arms, their own property, which no government on earth had a right to require.
[DHC3:192] — Joseph Smith Jr.

Only seven years ago we made a treaty by which we were assured that the buffalo country should be left to us forever. Now they threaten to take that from us also. — Sitting Bull

Fear never wrote a symphony or poem, negotiated a peace treaty, or cured a disease. Fear never pulled a family out of poverty or a country out of bigotry. Fear never saved a marriage or a business. Courage did that. Faith did that. People who refused to consult or cower to their timidities did that. But fear itself? Fear herds us into a prison and slams the doors. Wouldn't it be great to walk out? — Max Lucado

A treaty cannot be made which alters the Constitution of the country, or which infringes and express exceptions to the power of the Constitution. — Alexander Hamilton

We are going to sign a treaty with Mexico. We are competing internationally. We need another international airport for international cargo, international travel, international businesses. — Richard M. Daley

I keep thinking of Kon-Tiki as we fly along... the ocean is very blue. Sometimes we fly over white cloud banks that extend for miles and miles to the horizon.I feel content and very appreciative of the sunshine and good company, the little things which mean so much." This from a young man going to war.
"No peace treaty, no international government, is any good at all without the spirit underneath it. I look to the principles of a Christian life, not stopping at a 'gentlemanly' Christian life but working toward a saintly one. I hope one day to find and work toward God." And I never even knew what religion [Doug Bradlee] was, some sort of Protestant, I suppose. — James Brady

In the report made on behalf of the C.G.T. we affirmed that the Peace Treaty should, in accordance with the spirit of workers' organizations, lay the first foundations of the United States of Europe. — Leon Jouhaux

Nobody is going to give away the farm in Kyoto. It is not anybody's to give away. And even if the United States Senate would actually ratify a bad treaty, anything called for under the treaty would require legislation passed through both houses. — Thomas Schelling

Bear with me on this, Evanlyn. I know you're anxious about Horace."
WIll was a little puzzled by Halt's words. "No more anxious than the rest of us, surely," he said.
Halt turned away and raised his eyebrows as his gaze met Selethen's. Sometimes, he thought, his former apprentice could be remarkably slow on the uptake. He saw the Arridi's slow nod of understanding.

~Halt & Will about Evanlyn and Horace — John Flanagan

If the discussion centres on the essential principle of the E.U., the free movement of people and the ability to make decisions together, in that case, we don't want treaty change. — Francois Hollande

The government sent the Indians to Oklahoma. They had a treaty that said, 'You shall have this land as long as grass grows and water flows.' It was not only a good rhyme but looked like a good treaty, and it was till they struck oil. Then the Government took it away from us again. They said the treaty only refers to 'Water and Grass; it don't say anything about oil.' — Will Rogers

I wouldn't even go into the history of the last days of the Soviet Union, the withdrawal from Europe, and what promises were given at that time, because those were oral promises, and our leaders of that time strongly believe that, like in ancient Russia, a word given is better than any treaty. — Sergei Lavrov

Vatican city is an independent state created by the Lateran treaty of 11th Feb 1929 which was signed by Pope Pius XI, the holy see and the Italian government. It covers an area of 108 acres on the hill west of the Tiber river. It is separated from the rest of Rome by high walls on all sides except at the Piazza of St Peter. — Julian Noyce

Passionate smokers always welcome the peace-pipe without hesitation. — Ljupka Cvetanova

The most desirable aspects of the Law of the Sea Treaty pertain to navigational rights. — Frank Gaffney