20th-century President Quotes

Myself, the government and people of Nigeria are inspired by the United States of America's achievement and the principles which guide it.

A nation is born into freedom on the day when such a people, moulded into a nation by a process of cultural evolution and sense of oneness born of common struggle and suffering, announces to the world that it asserts its natural right to liberty and is ready to defend it with blood, life, and honor.

Diosdado Macapagal

Our only crime consisted of decreeing our own laws and applying them to all without exception. Our crime is having enacted an agrarian reform which effected the interests of the United Fruit Company. Our crime is wanting to have our own route to the Atlantic, our own electric power and our own docks and ports. Our crime is our patriotic wish to advance, to progress, to win economic independence to match our political independence. We are condemned because we have given our peasant population land and rights.

Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán

I believe that he who has less in life should have more in law.

Ramon Magsaysay

The Philippines has no policy that demands sacrifice of human lives.

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

We are Macedonians but we are Slav Macedonians. That's who we are! We have no connection to Alexander the Greek and his Macedonia. The ancient Macedonians no longer exist, they had disappeared from history long time ago. Our ancestors came here in the 5th and 6th century (AD).

Joking about Emmanuel Macron:

He's a bit of a man and a bit of a woman, as he's in fashion now. Androgynous.

Nicolas Sarkozy

The first time that I went to the United States was in 1974... I was 20 years old. America was in crisis. The dollar was at a low. The Watergate scandal had already erupted. And I still remember this vision I had of New York, which was a huge, fascinating city, dirty and violent. And I've been to the U.S. regularly, but what impresses me most in this large nation is its capacity to overcome hardship and return to the heights.

François Hollande

Milosevic was convinced that he could create Greater Serbia on the ruins of Yugoslavia, which is why he entered the war adventure that left thousands and thousands dead, a destroyed economy, infrastructure, homes, cities and villages. That politics did not succeed. Dodik, basically, wants to achieve Milosevic's aims, but not with artillery, but thinks that some sort of politics will lead to people saying: okay, let them break away, let them link with Serbia. That cannot pass.

Strike the enemy's settlements, turn them into dust, pave the Arab roads with the skulls of Jews.

I ask Congressmen why they have such close relations with Armenia, and they say that the Armenian Diaspora gives them a lot of money. Is that corruption or not?

Tell you what, I've been through hundreds of battles. I've seen it all. Which country in the west have I not been to? Every time! You should know Mike Wallace, in the U.S. He's way above you all! I and he talked and laughed comfortably, which is why the media need to raise your level of knowledge. Got it, or not? I'm anxious for you all, it's true. You really, I. You guys are good at one thing.

If I had not been born Perón, I would have liked to be Perón.

There is plenty of room at the top because very few people care to travel beyond the average route. And so most of us seem satisfied to remain within the confines of mediocrity.

How could we justify to the rest of the world imposing martial law on our capital?

When the Beijing Party Commission had proposed imposing martial law after the Tiananmen Square protests

Ours is not a poor country and even though we are now a poor people, there should be no room for the despondency that has settled on large sections of the population.

It has been thought, correctly and nicely, that everyone who is in peril will be helped. Practically this is implemented in the way that everyone who can say the word "asylum" is allowed to enter Europe and Finland, that word creates a subjective right to cross the border. Even for no proper reason, one gets a full investigation that lasts years, and if the preconditions for an asylum are not met, one can avoid coercive measures and thus stay in the country which he entered wrongly.

Sauli Niinistö

Culture is a more effective weapon than guns for the purpose of domination. For it was scientific, technical and technological culture which produced the guns. The prerequisite of any domination, exploitation and oppression is the denial to the oppressed man or people of his or their human attributes and therefore, in the first instance, cultural activities.

Ahmed Sékou Touré

We all with faith, goodwill and purpose consider mankind our greatest challenge!

William R. Tolbert Jr.

What is happening and what may happen in the Nagorno-Karabakh and all the occupied lands is our internal affair. No international organization or country can interfere with our internal affair

One must not be provoked when someone provokes him.

Putin rejected the diplomatic path and chose the path of war. We will take full responsibility for defending the sovereignty of our allies.

Emmanuel Macron

The main guarantor of Ukraine is the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Petro Poroshenko

If Europe does not see us as part of Europe, we will build Europe here in Ukraine.

Viktor Yanukovych

In Venezuela, nobody dares to mount a coup d'etat. Here, the people defend the revolution, democracy, sovereignty and the constitution.

Nicolás Maduro