Nations

True statesmanship is the art of changing a nation from what it is into what it ought to be.
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger

Fifty-four forty, or fight!
~ William Allen (issuing a challenge which became the slogan of U.S. expansionists), Speech on the Oregon Boundary Question (1844).

History of Ireland -- lawlessness and turbulency, robbery and oppression, hatred and revenge, blind selfishness everywhere -- no principle, no heroism. What can be done with it?
~ William Allingham, in William Allingham: A Diary (1907). Chapter VIII. 1866: Sunday, November 11

Give me but one hour of Scotland --
Let me see it ere I die.
~ William Edmondstoune (W.E.) Aytoun, from Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers (1849). Charles Edward at Versailles

They bore within their breasts the grief
That fame can never heal --
The deep, unutterable woe
Which none save exiles feel.
~ William Edmondstoune (W.E.) Aytoun, from Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers (1849). The Island of the Scots

Since number needs, let our convention be
More large and simple here, more profitably free.
~ William Baylebridge, Number and Nationality (1939)

That the king can do no wrong, is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.
~ William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69). Book III, Chapter XVII: Of Injuries Preeceding From, or Affecting, The Crown

The whore and gambler, by the state
Licens'd, build that nation's fate.
~ William Blake, from The Pickering Manuscript (c. 1803). Auguries of Innocence

There are States in which all Visionary Men are accounted Mad Men.
~ William Blake, The Laocoön (c. 1818).

When nations grow old, the Arts grow cold,
And Commerce settles on every tree.
~ William Blake, On Art And Artists (1800). On the Foundation of the Royal Academy

We will never have Fascism in England; no Englishman will dress up, not even for a revolution.
~ William Bolitho

I can conceive of a national destiny surpassing the glories of the present and the past -- a destiny which meets the responsibility of today and measures up to the possibilities of the future.
~ William Jennings Bryan, Speech Accepting the Democratic Nomination for the Presidency, Indianapolis IN (8 August 1900).

Nations, if they would be great in the better sense of the term, must intend benefit as well as confer it, they must plan advantage and not leave the results to chance.
~ William Jennings Bryan, in The Public (14 July 1906). The White Man's Burden (Address at the Independence Day Banquet of the American Society of London; 4 July 1906)

That nation which is unwilling to trust its cause to the universal conscience, or which shrinks from the presentation of its claims before a tribunal where reason holds sway, betrays a lack of faith in the soundness of its position.
~ William Jennings Bryan, in The Public (14 July 1906). The White Man's Burden (Address at the Independence Day Banquet of the American Society of London; 4 July 1906)

The strength of a nation does not lie in forts, nor in navies, nor yet in great standing armies, but in happy and contented citizens, who are ever ready to protect for themselves and to preserve for posterity the blessings which they enjoy.
~ William Jennings Bryan, Memorial Day Address. Arlington Cemetery, Washington, DC (30 May 1894).

Germans are flummoxed by humor, the Swiss have no concept of fun, the Spanish think there is nothing at all ridiculous about eating dinner at midnight, and the Italians should never, ever have been let in on the invention of the motor car.
~ Bill Bryson

The fact is that this is still the best place in the world for most things -- to post a letter, go for a walk, watch television, buy a book, venture out for a drink, go to a museaum, use the bank, get lost, seek help, or stand on a hillside and take in the view.
~ Bill Bryson (of Britain), Notes From A Small Island (1995).

To an American the whole purpose of living, the one constant confirmation of continued existence, is to cram as much sensual pleasure as possible into one's mouth more or less continually. Gratification, instant and lavish, is a birthright.
~ Bill Bryson, Notes From A Small Island (1995).

England can never be ruined except by a parliament.
~ William Cecil, Lord Burghley

The nation that will insist on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards.
~ Sir William Francis Butler, Charles George Gordon (1899). Chapter IV

Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich.
~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

Oh, the Germans classify, but the French arrange!
~ Willa Sibert Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927).

Let us teach that the honor of a nation consists not in the forced submission of other states, but in equal laws and free institutions, in cultivated fields and prosperous cities; in the development of intellectual and moral power, in the diffusion of knowledge, in magnanimity and justice, in the virtues and blessings of peace.
~ William Ellery Channing, Address to the Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts, Boston MA (1816). First Discourse on War

A nation is made powerful and to be honoured in the world, not so much by the number of its people as by the ability and character of that people.
~ William Cobbett, Cottage Economy (1821). Introduction

[I]t is abundant living amongst the people at large, which is the great test of good government, and the surest basis of national greatness and security.
~ William Cobbett, Cottage Economy (1821). Introduction

Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada are the horns, the head, the neck, the shins, and the hoof of the ox, and the United States are the ribs, the sirloin, the kidneys, and the rest of the body.
~ William Cobbett, in the Political Register (12 March 1831).

All nations make decisions based on self-interest and then defend them in the name of morality.
~ Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., from Credo (2003). Patriotism

[L]et us proclaim a new kind of patriotism, which takes as its object of ultimate loyalty not the nation-state, but the human race.
~ Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., from Credo (2003). Patriotism

Nationalism at the expense of another nation is as evil as racism at the expense of another race. Nevertheless, just as husbands can love their wives without denigrating other women, so patriots ought to be able to love their country without disparaging others. I love America, and it is precisely because I love my country and want to promote her best interests that I want her citizens to recognize their interdependence with all nations, their need for common rather than national security, the worldwide need for disarmament, environmental protection, and greater economic justice.
~ Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., from A Passion for the Possible: A Message to U.S. Churches (1993). A Vision of the Future

Someone should tell the Germans about hyphens.
~ William Cole

The Cat, the Rat, and Lovell our dog
Rule all England under a hog.
~ William Collingbourne (referring to Sir William Catesby, Sir Richard Ratcliffe, the crest of Lord Lovell and emblem of King Richard III, c.1484)

Traditional people of Indian nations have interpreted the two roads that face the light-skinned race as the road to technology and the road to spirituality. We feel that the road to technology ... has led modern society to a damaged and seared earth. Could it be that the road to technology represents a rush to destruction, and that the road to spirituality represents the slower path that the traditional native people have traveled and are now seeking again? The earth is not scorched on this trail. The grass is still growing there.
~ William (Morning Star) Commanda, (1991)

I've always wanted to go to Switzerland to see what the army does with those wee red knives.
~ Billy Connolly

The presidency of the United States should not be determined by technicalities. It needs to be determined by the will of the people.
~ William Daley

To be Canadian is to live in relative calm and with great dignity.
~ William Davis

Oh yes, Canada has a soul right enough, but it has until recently been exceedingly cautious about letting it show. Nor was this simply because Canada was shy, though reticence is a national characteristic; it was because Canada was spiritually lazy, and was perfectly happy to borrow soul, if it might be needed, from Britain or the United States.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, in The Merry Heart: Reflections on Reading, Writing, and the World of Books (1997). Chapter 3. Literature in a Country Without a Mythology

There has never been a war of Canadian origin, nor for a Canadian cause.
~ William Arthur Deacon

I have no problem at all in saying that the time has well and truly come when Australia as a nation should acknowledge and express its sorrow, or acknowledge and be sorry for the plight of the Aboriginal people of this country. I mean it's not as if we've put things right. At every level of human existence, the Aboriginal people of this country are currently disadvantaged ...
~ Sir William Patrick Deane, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (5 December 2002). Encounter on Radio National

The ultimate test of our worth as a nation is how we treat the most vulnerable and disadvantaged of our people.
~ Sir William Patrick Deane, Farewell Message as departing Governor-General of Australia (28 June 2001).

Where there is no room for national pride or national shame about the past, there can be no national soul.
~ Sir William Patrick Deane, Inaugural Vincent Lingiari Memorial Lecture (22 August 1996). Some Signposts from Daguragu

Nor one feeling of vengeance presume to defile
The cause, or the men, of the Emerald Isle.
~ William Drennan, in Glendalloch, Other Poems by the Late Dr Drennan (1859). Erin (written in 1795)

An' sun on de sky can't shine lak de eye
Of dat nice leetle Canadienne.
~ William Henry Drummond, from The Habitant and other French-Canadian Poems (1897). De Nice Leetle Canadienne

A nation must love peace, but keep its powder dry.
~ William James "Will" Durant, The Story of Civilization, Volume I (1935). Our Oriental Heritage

Slowly trade and common interest merge nations into vast national groups, and provide the basis for an international morality. Soon all the world will agree that patriotism is not enough.
~ William James "Will" Durant, The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey Of Human Life And Destiny (1929).

The health of nations is more important than the wealth of nations.
~ William James "Will" Durant

The pious ones of Plymouth, who, reaching the Rock, first fell upon their own knees and then upon the aborigines.
~ William Maxwell Evarts, quoted in The Louisville Courier-Journal (4 July 1913).

The Swiss ... are not a people so much as a neat, clean, quite solvent business.
~ William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust (1948).

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved, into perpetuity, by a nation's proverbs, fables, folk sayings and quotations.
~ William Feather

The great themes of Canadian history are as follows: Keeping the Americans out, keeping the French in, and trying to get the Natives to somehow disappear.
~ Will Ferguson, Why I Hate Canadians (1997).

National injustice is the surest road to national downfall.
~ William Ewart Gladstone, Speech, Plumstead UK (30 November 1878).

[N]o nation can ever be safe in the position it holds among nations, however great and however imposing, unless it recognizes those principles of justice and equality which bind together the nations of the world.
~ William Ewart Gladstone, Speech (9 December 1879).

Yet Britain set the world ablaze
In good King George's glorious days!
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, Iolanthe (1882 opera). Lord Mountararat

India indeed has a preciousness which a materialistic age is in danger of missing. Some day the fragrance of her thought will win the hearts of men. This grim chase after our own tails which marks the present age cannot continue for ever. The future contains a new human urge towards the real beauty and holiness of life. When it comes India will be searched by loving eyes and defended by knightly hands.
~ William John (W.J.) Grant, The Spirit of India (1933).

[I]t is wholly false to infer that music is independent of nationality. The composer bears the mark of his race not less surely than the poet or the painter, and there is no music with true blood in its veins and true passion in its heart that has not drawn inspiration from the breast of the mother country.
~ William Henry Hadow, A Croatian Composer: Notes Toward The Study Of Joseph Haydn (1897).

We are all Socialists now.
~ Sir William Harcourt, Speech, House of Commons (1888).

The difference between the vanity of a Frenchman and an Englishman seems to be this: The one thinks everything right that is French, the other thinks everything wrong that is not English.
~ William Hazlitt

India is the land of dreams. India had always dreamt -- more of the Bliss that is man's final goal. And this has helped India to be more creative in history than any other nation. Hence the efforescence of myths and legends, religious and philosophies, music, and dances and the different styles of architecture.
~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (G.W.F.) Hegel, The Philosophy of History (1832).

What have I done for you, England, my England?
What is there I would not do, England my own?
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Henley, Pro Rege Nostro (1900)

What then? But it is French! Their houses are all gilt and beshit.
~ William Hogarth (1748)

I have done a good piece of work in the History, and I know it. So let the world wag. Whatever the reviewers may say or not say about it now, those who really wish to learn the facts about India will find them there and there alone.
~ Sir William Wilson ("W.W.") Hunter, in Life of Sir William Wilson Hunter, K.C.S.I., M.A., Ll.D., a Vice-President of the Royal Asiatic Society, Etc. (1901). Chapter XXII: The History of British India (letter to Sir George Birdwood; March 6, 1899)

Without the Empire we should be tossed like a cork in the cross current of world politics. It is at once our sword and our shield.
~ William Morris Hughes, Speech in Melbourne, Australia (1926).

A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbors.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge

God does not always punish a nation by sending it adversity. More often He gives the oppressors their hearts' desire, and sends leanness withal into their soul.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, Personal Religion and the Life of Devotion (1924).

The nations which have put mankind and posterity most in their debt have been small states -- Israel, Athens, Florence, Elizabethan England.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, from Outspoken Essays, Second Series (1922). The State, Visible and Invisible

Canadians have been accustomed to define themselves by saying what they are not.
~ William Kilbourn

I believe that the time has come for everyone in South Africa to become involved in a genuine open discussion on the challenges presented by our enormous language, cultural and ethnic diversity. We dare not allow the fact of our apartheid history to prevent us from looking today and tomorrow's realities squarely in the eye.
~ Frederik Willem (F.W.) de Klerk, The promotion of harmony in a pluralistic world (Speech, 21 March 2001).

[N]ation-building must be a priority. Symbols, common values and goals with which they all can associate themselves, should be the cement that binds all communities in a shared national identity.
~ Frederik Willem (F.W.) de Klerk, The promotion of harmony in a pluralistic world (Speech, 21 March 2001).

All history shows that, in exact proportion as nations advance in civilisation, the accounts of miracles taking place among them become rarer and rarer, until at last they entirely cease.
~ William Edward Hartpole (E.H.) Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, Vol. I (1865). Chapter II: On The Decling Sense of The Miraculous. The Miracles of The Church

Our England's heart is sound as oak;
Our English will is firm;
And through our actions Freedom spoke
In history's proudest term.
~ William James Linton, Claribel and Other Poems (1865). Heart and Will

In Iroquois society, leaders are encouraged to remember seven generations in the past and consider seven generations in the future when making decisions that affect the people.
~ Wilma Mankiller

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Strictly Personal (1941). Chapter 31

The degree of a nation's civilization is marked by its disregard for the necessities of existence.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Our Betters (1923).

They are not an amorous race. They are of course sufficiently sexual for the purpose of reproducing their species, but they cannot control the instinctive feeling that the sexual act is disgusting.
~ W. Somerset Maugham (of the English), The Summing Up (1938).

If you can get behind an Englishman's unholy fear of making a friend until he has known the candidate for at least five years, you will find him a pretty good egg.
~ William H. (Bill) Mauldin, Up Front (1945).

Some things are worthless, and some others so good
That nations who buy them pay only in blood.
~ William E. Miller, Wounded (1864)

The sham community of the present -- the nation -- is formed for purposes of rivalry only, and consequently suppresses all minor differences that do not help it to supremacy over other nations.
~ William Morris, Commonweal (1886).

The Germans are like women, you can scarcely ever fathom their depths -- they haven't any.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Antichrist (1888).

As a nation, we have lost our sense of tragedy, a recognition that bad things happen to good people.
~ William Niskanen

The Scots are the backbone of Canada. They are all right in their three vital parts -- head, heart and haggis.
~ William Osler

England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example.
~ William Pitt, in War Speeches of William Pitt (1915).

The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.
~ William Henry Preece, (1876).

They're very dogmatic. The North Koreans, they are very programmed, they have their policy statements they don't want to diverge from. They're very doctrinaire. They don't negotiate like others -- quid pro quo.
~ Bill Richardson, CNN TV (11 January 2003). North Korea talks in New Mexico end

America is a nation that conceives many odd inventions for getting somewhere but can think of nothing to do when it gets there.
~ Will Rogers

Any nation is heathen that ain't strong enough to punch you in the jaw.
~ Will Rogers

I don't care how little your country is, you got a right to run it like you want to. When the big nations quit meddling then the world will have peace.
~ Will Rogers

That's what makes us a great nation. We take the little things serious, and the big ones as a joke.
~ Will Rogers, Daily Telegrams (15 September 1933).

The English should give Ireland home rule -- and reserve the motion picture rights.
~ Will Rogers, in The Autobiography of Will Rogers (1949).

The nation is prosperous on the whole, but how much prosperity is there in a hole?
~ Will Rogers

The Nations in this world that get along and never have any trouble are the ones that never meet in conference at all.
~ Will Rogers

There is no income tax in Russia. But there's no income.
~ Will Rogers

There is one thing about Englishmen, they won't fix anything till it's just about totally ruined. You couldn't get the English to fix anything at the start. No! They like to sit and watch it grow worse. Then, when it just looks like the whole thing has gone up Salt Creek, why, the English jump in and rescue it.
~ Will Rogers

We'll hold the distinction of being the only Nation in the history of the world that ever went to the poor house in an automobile.
~ Will Rogers

Too much leisure with too much money has been the dread of societies across the ages. That is when nations cave in.
~ William F. Russell

It was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act I, scene iv

There be many Caesars
Ere such another Julius. Britain's
A world by itself, and we will nothing pay
For wearing our own noses.
~ William Shakespeare, Cymbeline. Act III, scene i

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Feared by their breed and famous by their birth.
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard II. Act II, scene i

I fancy the proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one.
~ William Shenstone, in Works in Verse and Prose, Vol. II (1764). Essays on Men, Manners, and Things. Of Men and Manners

God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness.
~ William Stoughton, Election Sermon at Boston (29 April 1669)

A nation's civil holidays are an epitome of its history.
~ William Graham Sumner, in The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays (1914). Memorial Day Address (1872)

For a steady self-esteem and indomitable confidence in our own courage, greatness, magnanimity, who can compare with Britons, except their children across the Atlantic?
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The Virginians (1857-59). Chapter 89

How hard it is to make an Englishman acknowledge that he is happy!
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis (1848-1850). Chapter LXX: In which Pendennis counts his Eggs

The advent of that morn divine
When nations may as forests grow,
Wherein the oak hates not the pine,
Nor beeches wish the cedars woe.
~ William Watson, from The Father of the Forest And Other Poems (1895). The Father of the Forest

May this, thy last-born infant, then arise,
To glad thy heart, and greet thy parent eyes;
And Australasia float, with flag unfurl'd,
A new Britannia in another world.
~ William Charles Wentworth, Australasia (July 1823).

Nations are only chains of individuals.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from Hello, Boys! (1919). How Is It?

I no more recognise parties; I recognise only Germans.
~ Wilhelm II, Speech at Berlin, Germany (4 August 1914).

Remember, the German people are the chosen of God. On me, the German Emperor, the spirit of God has descended. I am His sword, His weapon, and His vice-regent.
~ Wilhelm II, Speech at Berlin, Germany (4 August 1914).

You English, are mad, mad, mad as March hares. What has come over you that you are so completely given over to suspicions quite unworthy of a great nation? What more can I do than I have done?
~ Wilhelm II (interview for an article that become known as "The Daily Telegraph Affair"), London Daily Telegraph (28 October 1908).

The typical Englishman is a strong being who takes a cold bath in the morning and talks about it for the rest of the day.
~ Ellen Wilkinson

We should stop worshipping flags and respect the people, remember the people and forget the flags.
~ Betty Williams, Speech to the People's Assembly at the Annual Peace March from Perugio to Assissi A People's United Nations (22 September 1995)

The art of music above all other arts is the expression of the soul of a nation.
~ Ralph Vaughan Williams, from National Music (1934).

The business of finding a nation's soul is a long and slow one at the best and a great many prophets must be slain in the course of it. Perhaps when we have slain enough prophets future generations will begin to build their tombs.
~ Ralph Vaughan Williams, from National Music (1934).

The typical Welsh intellectual is -- as we say -- only one generation away from shirt sleeves.
~ Raymond Henry Williams, Politics and Letters: Interviews with New Left Review (1979).

If people behaved in the way nations do they would all be put in straitjackets.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams

O flower of Scotland, when will we see your like again,
that fought and died for your wee bit hill and glen
and stood against him, proud Edwards' army,
and sent him homeward tae think again.
~ Roy Williamson, O Flower of Scotland (unofficial Scottish Nationalist anthem, 1968)

[France] is a country where the money falls apart in your hands but you can't tear the toilet paper.
~ Billy Wilder, quoted in Billy Wilder in Hollywood (1977). Chapter 18

[E]ngland is become the residence of foreigners, and the property of strangers: at the present time, there is no Englishman, either earl, bishop, or abbat; strangers all, they prey upon the riches and vitals of England; nor is there any hope of a termination to this misery.
~ William of Malmesbury, Chronicle of the Kings of England (c. 1142).

Australia is the flattest, driest, ugliest place on earth. Only those who can be possessed by her can know what secret beauty she holds.
~ Eric Paul Willmot, Australia The Last Experiment (1987).

Given a fair wind, we will negotiate our way into the Common Market, head held high, not crawling in.
~ Harold Wilson

We are a World Power and a world influence or we are nothing.
~ Harold Wilson (November 1964).

Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.
~ William Butler Yeats, Speech to the Irish Senate (3 March 1926).