Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Why, so soon as French Canadians, who are in a minority in this House and in the country, were to organise as a political party, they would compel the majority to organise as a political party, and the result must be disastrous to themselves.

We need to understand that we've divided our country in language based states. So what happens is that more regional parties come in the front and different opinions don't let any one particular strong decision to pass through.

In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. That is what makes America what it is.

Japan is a great nation. It should begin to act like one.

By what principle of original right is it that one-fiftieth or one-ninetieth of a great nation, by calling themselves a State, have the right to break up and ruin that nation as a matter of original principle?

Nations make wars; states make wars; and cultures make wars. We tend to conflate the three, but they are very different wars.

Americans never can be united into one compact empire, under any species of government whatever. Their fate seems to be -- a disunited people till the end of time.

To make a State appear necessary, any would-be State must first destroy the natural order and create a Hobbesian "anarchy" characterized by looting and vandalizing.

Upon the whole, if we allow two thirds of the people to have been with us in the revolution, is not the allowance ample? Are not two thirds of the nation now with the administration? Divided we have ever been, and ever must be. Two thirds always had and will have more difficulty to struggle with the one third than with all our foreign enemies.

… half-formed pseudo nations

To give laws unto a people; to institute magistrates and officers over them; to punish and pardon malefactors; to have the sole authority of making war and peace, are the true marks of sovereignty.

The French will only be united under the threat of danger. Nobody can simply bring together a country that has 265 kinds of cheese.

Oh! what a snug little Island, A right little, tight little Island!

Our economy of allegiance simply is not infinitely expandable. If we become more Virginian or Georgian, surely we will also feel more remote, less responsible for the poor of Kentucky or of the ghettoes of Chicago. If we became more Virginian, we would be less American.

We have done nothing yet—I regret to see no national feeling in the majority of Congress—everyone appears to be engrossed with the interest alone of his own section of the country—so long as this feeling predominates, it will be unfortunate for our nation.

A Volk [people] without a state is nothing, a lifelong frivolous phantom like the vagabond gypsies and Jews.

The division into Whig and Tory is founded in the nature of men; the weakly and nerveless, the rich and the corrupt, seeing more safety and accessibility in a strong executive; the healthy, firm, and virtuous, feeling confidence in their physical and moral resources, and willing to part with only so much power as is necessary for their good government; and, therefore, to retain the rest in the hands of the many…

Countries separated by half the globe do not present the natural conditions for being under one government, or even members of one federation.

Germany within its self is so Potent, that it might be formidable to all its Neighbours, if its strength was well united and rightly employed; nevertheless this strong Body has also its infirmities, which weaken its strength, and slacken its vigour; its irregular Constitution of Government is one of the chief causes of its Distemper.

We" are not the government; the government is not "us." The government does not in any accurate sense "represent" the majority of the people

Latin America One Country Under One People

The Dutch were not crusaders; they confined themselves to unheroic, humorless, businesslike plunder, calculated and regularized; the plundering fleets departed and returned on schedule. The fact that the plundered aliens were unbelievers became less important than the fact that they were not Dutchmen

Neither our present-day natives nor their ancestors ever surrendered their sovereignty…. Frankly, I don't recall ever surrendering my sovereignty either. I was never asked whether I accepted the rule of federal, provincial or municipal governments over me. I was simply born here, like a Mohawk or an Inuit, and successive groups of people calling themselves the government have taken it upon themselves to claim that they rule me.

We are a separate nation by all the tests-race, language, religion, culture determining nationality. The only link connecting us with the other people of the State being the bond of common ruler. If the Indian National Congress could persuade itself to recognize: the Muslims of India as a separate nation although they had so much in common with the other elements of the Indian population, the Government of India should have no hesitation in recognition what is patent and Scout revertible fact in our case.

This claim of being a Muslim State is of course only a camouflage. It is a screen to dupe the common man, so that he may not see clearly that Pakistan is a feudal State in which a clique is trying by these methods to maintain itself in power.