Country quotes
20.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?"
"This is emphatically an age of discoveries; but I will venture the assertion, that none but an American slaveholder could have discovered that a man born in a country was not a citizen of it."
"I can imagine no greater disservice to the country than to establish a system of censorship that would deny to the people of a free republic like our own their indisputable right to criticize their own public officials. While exercising the great powers of the office I hold, I would regret in a crisis like the one through which we are now passing to lose the benefit of patriotic and intelligent criticism."
"A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood... A day will come when we shall see... the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas."
"The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops - no, but the kind of man the country turns out."
"All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it."
"I've put pencil to paper... and I've said I would cut spending, and I've said exactly where. Each one of my budgets has taken a meat axe to foreign aid, because I think we ought to quit sending it to countries that hate us."
"I know there are some voices calling for a punitive deal that punishes Britain. That would be an act of calamitous self-harm for the countries of Europe, and it would not be the act of a friend."
"The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."
"Every man has two countries: his own and France."
"Good luck and believe me, dearest Doc - it's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear."
"A truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes."
"What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war."
"Hey, all I was trying to do was keep my country and my family safe!"
"People think I'm strong, but actually I wanted to crawl away. I thought, I'm going to live in the country with my horse and I'll get a nine-to-five; I don't need this."
"Too often in the past, our Armed Forces have returned to Canada from their trials with little fanfare. Not so today. Canadians across the country came out in force, united in appreciation, to honour the bravery, heroism, strength and sacrifice of those who fought for freedom and security in Afghanistan."
"It is as if a king had sent you to a country to carry out one special, specific task. You go to the country and you perform a hundred other tasks, but if you have not performed the task you were sent for, it is as if you have done nothing at all. So people have come into the world for particular tasks, and that is our purpose. If we don't perform it, we will have done nothing."
"Since the white people collectively have practiced the worst form of hatred against Negroes in America and they know that they are guilty of it, now when The Honorable Elijah Muhammad comes along and begins to list the historic deed - the historic attitude, the historic behavior of the white man in this country toward the black people in this country, again, the white people are so guilty and they can't stop doing these things to make Mr. Muhammad appear to be wrong, so they hide their wrong by saying "he is teaching hatred.""
"I can assure you that my first and foremost interest is my country. This is not a personal matter. We are not people driven by a wish to be in the government since [it] is for us the least attractive work, even though we are politicians."
"This is the only country in the world, that worries about what it is. The rest of them know what they are. No one ever needs to go searching for the heart of Norway. Or looks for the soul of Mozambique. They know what they are."
