Nations and empires flourish and decay, By turns command, and in their turns obey.
Nation Quotes
A new century is to a nation very much what a new year is to a man.
Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul.
Today the nations of the world may be divided into two classes; the nations in which the government fears the people, and the nations in which the people fear the government.
The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave… to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.
Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation.
To me the nation is the ultimate political reality. There is no political reality beyond it. But what it is cannot be determined scientifically, you cannot pick it up, you cannot measure it.
There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favor from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
The nations which have put mankind and posterity most in their debt have been small states Israel, Athens, Florence, Elizabethan England.
May our nation continue to be the beakon of hope to the world. (from a 1989 Christmas card)
