National Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

We admit with all sincerity that our first duty is within our own household; that we must not merely talk, but act, in favor of cleanliness and decency and righteousness, in all political, social, and civic matters. No prosperity and no glory can save a nation that is rotten at heart. We must ever keep the core of our national being sound, and see to it that not only our citizens in private life, but, above all, our statesmen in public life, practice the old commonplace virtues which from time immemorial have lain at the root of all true national wellbeing.

Theodore Roosevelt

But we National Socialists wish precisely to attract all socialists, even the Communists; we wish to win them over from their international camp to the national one.

The idea of achieving security through national armament is, at the present state of military technique, a disastrous illusion.

Albert Einstein

The chase is among the best of all national pastimes; it cultivates that vigorous manliness for the lack of which in a nation, as in an individual, the possession of no other qualities can possibly atone.

Theodore Roosevelt

We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all maters of general concern act as a nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it.

George Washington

So let us here resolve that Dag Hammarskjold did not live, or die, in vain. Let us call a truce to terror. Let us invoke the blessings of peace. And, as we build an international capacity to keep peace, let us join in dismantling the national capacity to wage war.

John F. Kennedy

We must set the end in view as the goal; and then, instead of making a fetish of some particular kind of means, we should adopt whatever honorable means will best accomplish the end. In so far as unrestricted individual liberty brings the best results, we should encourage it. But when a point is reached where this complete lack of restriction on individual liberty fails to achieve the best results, then, on behalf of the whole people, we should exercise the collective power of the people, through the State Legislatures in matters of purely local concern, and through the National Legislature when the purpose is so big that only National action can achieve it.

Theodore Roosevelt

A national spirit is necessary for national existence. A flag is a material aid to the development of such a spirit.

When my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the
same.

John F. Kennedy

It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough jobs or enough profits.

John F. Kennedy

Part of America's genius has always been its ability to absorb newcomers, to forge a national identity out of the disparate lot that arrived on our shores.

A permanent peace cannot be prepared by threats but only by the honest attempt to create a mutual trust. However strong national armaments may be, they do not create military security for any nation nor do they guarantee the maintenance of peace.

Albert Einstein

The Emancipation Proclamation had four enduring results. First, it gave force to the executive power to change conditions in the national interest on a broad and far-reaching scale. Second, it dealt a devastating blow to the system of slaveholding and an economy built upon it, which had been muscular enough to engage in warfare on the Federal government. Third, it enabled the Negro to play a significant role in his own liberation with the ability to organize and to struggle, with less of the bestial retaliation his slave status had permitted to his masters. Fourth, it resurrected and restated the principle of equality upon which the founding of the nation rested.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The establishment of the National Park Service is justified by considerations of good administration, of the value of natural beauty as a National asset, and of the effectiveness of outdoor life and recreation in the production of good citizenship.

Theodore Roosevelt

[A] world in which it is wrong to murder an individual civilian and right to drop a thousand tons of high explosive on a residential area does sometimes make me wonder whether this earth of ours is not a loony bin made use of by some other planet. Not to have a national anthem would be logical.

We must recognize the fundamental rights of man. There can be no true national life in our democracy unless we give unqualified recognition to freedom of religious worship and freedom of education.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The driving force of a nation lies in its spiritual purpose, made effective by free, tolerant but unremitting national will.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Let the content of Swaraj grow with the growth of national consciousness and aspirations.

Political power means the capacity to regulate national life through national representatives.

On each national day of inauguration since 1789, the people have renewed their sense of dedication to the United States.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Our freedom must be buttressed by a homogeny equally and unchallengeably free, no matter what color they are, so that all the other inimical forces everywhere -- systems political or religious or racial or national -- will not just respect us because we practice freedom, they will fear us because we do.

William Faulkner

No matter what the future may hold for the Irish nation, the seven years — 1916 to 1923 — must ever remain a period of absorbing interest. Not for over two hundred years has there been such a period of intense and sustained effort to regain the national sovereignty and independence. Over the greater part of the period it was the effort of, one might say, the entire nation. An overwhelming majority of the people of this island combined voluntarily during those years in pursuit of a common purpose.

Éamon de Valera

Participants perceive swings in national mood, elections bring new administrations to power and new partisan or ideological distributions to Congress, and interest groups of various descriptions press (or fail to press) their demands on government.

John W. Kingdon

The religious principle of Jesus was thus certainly freed by Paul from its original Jewish and national husk, but only to be immediately clothed again in a new supernaturalistic envelope, the origin of which likewise lay in the historically given ideas of Hellenism and Pharisaism. Therefore the Pauline Christ can just as little be for us a binding object of faith as the Jesus of history.

Otto Pfleiderer

If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual State. In a single State, if the persons entrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair.

Alexander Hamilton