Quotes about Country

The whole country is one vast insane asylum and they're letting the worst patients run the place.

But when nothing is valued for what it is, everything is destined to be wasted. Once the values of things refer only to their future usefulness, then an infinite withdrawal of value from the living present has begun. Nothing (and nobody) can then exist that is not theoretically replaceable by something (or somebody) more valuable. The country that we (or some of us) had thought to make our home becomes instead 'a nation rich in natural resources'; the good bounty of the land begins its mechanical metamorphosis into junk, garbage, silt, poison, and other forms of 'waste.' "The inevitable result of such an economy is that no farm or any other usable property can safely be regarded by anyone as a home, no home is ultimately worthy of our loyalty, nothing is ultimately worth doing, and no place or task or person is worth a lifetime's devotion. 'Waste,' in such an economy, must eventually include several categories of humans--the unborn, the old, 'disinvested' farmers, the unemployed, the 'unemployable.' Indeed, once our homeland, our source, is regarded as a resource, we are all sliding downward toward the ashheap or the dump.

The best people, like the best wines, come from the hills.

A city man is a home anywhere, for all big cities are much alike. But a country man has a place where he belongs, where he always returns, and where, when the time comes, he is willing to die.

It is enough for the evil people to succeed, for the good people to do nothing.

That one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself to the service of the entire human race. The Great Being saith: Blessed and happy is he that ariseth to promote the best interests of the peoples and kindreds of the earth. In another passage He hath proclaimed: It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.

As a woman I have no country.
As a woman I want no country.
As a woman my country is the whole world.

It wasn't “red states” against “blue states” so much as flaming red rural areas rising up against the big cities.

The countryside knows in its heart that it is right. America's sustaining myths are rural ones: virtue resides in the soil, in the little house on the prairie, the lonely clapboard church, the one-room school, the small self-governing Puritan township. American writers, from Fenimore Cooper and Thoreau to Gary Snyder and Barry Lopez, have expended much eloquence on the theme that true wisdom is to be found in the woods, not in the arid intellectualism… of the city.

Like Britain (and unlike France or Italy) the US, despite producing at least two of the great cities of the world, is prone to see the city… as… a pustular, abnormal swelling on the fair face of the countryside… So it's hardly surpirsing that when the suburbs have to choose a side in the war at election time, they tend to declare themselves for the country and the mystical values that come with being so close to the smell of the woods and the footprints of the mountain lion. Suburbanites love to think that their little acre of tract housing is almost, if not quite, a farm (one of the most hallowed words in American mythology), and if farmers' property rights are threatened by the city, they'll go with the farmers every time.

The most common commodity in this country is unrealized potential.

Do not let us speak of darker days, let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days: these are great days-the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.

These are not dark days: these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived.

If the Almighty were to rebuild the world and asked me for advice, I would have English Channels round every country. And the atmosphere would be such that anything which attempted to fly would be set on fire.

The American's Creed adopted by the House of Representatives, April 3, 1918 I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic, a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect Union one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom; equality, justice and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes. I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend if against all enemies.

When I was young I had an elderly friend who used often to ask me to stay with him in the country. He was a religious man and he read prayers to the assembled household every morning. But he had crossed out in pencil all the passages that praised God. He said that there was nothing so vulgar as to praise people to their faces and, himself a gentleman, he could not believe that God was so ungentlemanly as to like it.

Those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country, as the behavior of the country is most mockable at the court.

BRUTUS: Be patient till the last. Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may hear: believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe: censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: - Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his ambition. Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply.

Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition: By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then, The image of his Maker, hope to win by it? Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee; Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not: Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, Thou fall'st a blessed martyr! Serve the king; And,-prithee, lead me in: There take an inventory of all I have, To the last penny; 'tis the king's: my robe, And my integrity to heaven, is all I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell! Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies.

Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of?

To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and, by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die: to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips an scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. Soft you now! The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember'd.

'Tis pride that pulls the country down.

If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms,-never! never! never! You cannot conquer America.

The Country is both the Philosopher's Garden and his Library, in which he Reads and Contemplates the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God.

The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God, but in cities little else but the works of men.

I do not prize the word 'cheap.' It is not a word of hope, nor a word of cheer. It is not a word of inspiration. It is the badge of poverty. The signal of distress. Cheep merchandise means cheap men, cheap men means a cheap country.

Our country is the world; our countrymen are mankind.

Our country is the world; our countrymen are all mankind.

My country is the world; my countrymen are mankind.

A man's country is the world.

Of all tyrannies a country can suffer, the worst is the tyranny of the majority.