Country Quotes

No business which depends for its existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level - - I mean the wages of decent living.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you - - Ask what you can do for your country.

John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1961

It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jr.

So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked.

Mark Twain

It is the common failing of totalitarian regimes that they cannot really understand the nature of our democracy. They mistake dissent for disloyalty. They mistake restlessness for a rejection of policy. They mistake a few committees for a country. They misjudge individual speeches for public policy. Answering North Vietnamese charge that US could not endure.

Lyndon B. Johnson

Canada is a country whose main exports are hockey players and cold fronts. Our main imports are baseball players and acid rain.

Pierre Trudeau

We can have no 50 - 50 allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.

Teddy Roosevelt

I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.

Nathan Hale

From the beginning of our history the country has been afflicted with compromise. It is by compromise that human rights have been abandoned. I insist that this shall cease. The country needs repose after all its trials it deserves repose. And repose can only be found in everlasting principles.

Charles Sumne

I honestly believe that in my lifetime we will see a country once again governed by Christians... and Christian values. What Christians have got to do is take back this country, one precinct at a time, one neighborhood at a time, and one state at a time.

Ralph Reed, Executive Director, the Christian Coalition

Intellectually, I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country.

Sinclair Lewis

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

James Baldwin

An ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country.

Sir Henry Wotton

And for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of that country know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms.

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

Oscar Wilde

A country can be judged by the quality of its proverbs.

German Prove

Wherever I have gone in this country, I have found Americans.

Alf Landon, during his speech in his presidential campaign against FDR

I would die for my country, but I could never let my country die for me.

Neil Kinnock

All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers... Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.

Franois de Salignac de la Mothe Fenelon

The quality of American life must keep pace with the quantity of American goods. This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.

John F. Kennedy

Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever.

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia - Denouncing the evils of slavery

We should seek by all means in our power to avoid war, by analysing possible causes, by trying to remove them, by discussion in a spirit of collaboration and good will. I cannot believe that such a programme would be rejected by the people of this country, even if it does mean the establishment of personal contact with the dictators.

Neville Chamberlain

Modern war has decimated many a country; but it has always spawned millions of bureaucrats. They fatten on shortages and thrive on trouble. Peace can never offer such opportunities for exercising petty tyrannies, using red tape to regiment the individual and making life generally unpleasant.

Paul Tabori, _The Natural Science of Stupidity_. (New York: ChiltonCompany, 1960), p. 104.

I respect every soldier, from every country, who serves beside us in the hard work of history. America is grateful, and America will not forget.

George W. Bush, September 2, 2004, The Republican National Convention, N. Y.

How do you govern a country which has 246 different kinds of cheese?

Charles De Gaulle

For what were all these country patriots born To hunt, and vote, and raise the price of corn.

George Gordon Byron

Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country.

Marquis de Lafayette

A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.

Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire

It is not unseemly for a man to die fighting in defense of his country.

Homer, The Iliad

To hate a man because he was born in another country, because he speaks a different language, or because he takes a different view of this subject or that, is a great folly. Desist, I implore you, for we are all equally human... Let us have but one end in view, the welfare of humanity.

John Comenius

The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.

Thomas Paine

The politician in my country seeks votes, affection and respect, in that order. ... With few notable exceptions, they are simply men who want to be loved.

Edward R. Murrow

I have no country to fight for my country is the earth, and I am a citizen of the world.

Eugene V. Debs

Words learned by rote a parrot may rehearse; but talking is not always to converse, not more distinct from harmony divine, the constant creaking of a country sign.

William Cowpe

Science cannot stop while ethics catches up - - And nobody should expect scientists to do all the thinking for the country.

Elvin Stackman

The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or woman.

Willa Sibert Cathe

I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.

Nathan Hale, last words, 22 September 1776

The man who prefers his country before any other duty shows the same spirit as the man who surrenders every right to the state. They both deny that right is superior to authority.

Lord Acton