Shelby Foote Quotes

When I first started writing, I was living in England and I had that uniquely English sense of sarcasm, which has definitely seemed to have left me. I am a naturalized American and my sensibility has become far more American.

Our culture, language, history, and values are vital to uniting us as a nation.

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

Pearl Harbor caused our Nation to wholeheartedly commit to winning World War II, changing the course of our Nation's history and the world's future.

A nation is a work of art and a work of time.

A nation is a historical group of men of recognizable cohesion, held together by a common enemy.

No nation is formed within a night, one generation's era of even two. A nation can be described as the continuous string of many generations that time, this pitiless, thoughtless sword of nature, separates their physical connections along the course of their history.

The Crown as a symbol of sovereignty encourages British Canadians to ignore their own failure to build a united nation by allowing them an illusory participation in a history and a greatness not properly theirs.

We are Americans, speaking the same language, adopting the same customs, holding the same general opinions... and shall rise and fall with Americans.

Strange, (is it not?) that battles, martyrs, blood, even assassination should so condense - perhaps only really lastingly condense - a Nationality.

A healthy nation is as unconscious of its nationality as a healthy man of his bones. But if you break a person's nationality it will think of nothing else but getting it set again.

The Mexican people, you cannot explain this wealth, this history, this joy, the capacity to celebrate amid these tragedies that you have asked about. I can say another thing, that this unity, that this people has managed not to fail, not to end with so many wars, things, things that are happening now.

Since September 11, it seems to me that never in our lifetime, except possibly in the early stages of World War II, has it been clearer that we have as a source of strength, a source of direction, a source of inspiration - our story.

But the biggest thing that has happened in the world in my life, in our lives, is this: By the grace of God, America won the Cold War.

The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.

I am a Maharashtrian and I am extremely proud of that. But I am an Indian first. And Mumbai belongs to all Indians.

The war for our Union, with all the constitutional issues which it settled, and all the military lessons which it gathered in, has throughout its dilatory length but one meaning in the eyes of history. It freed the country from the social plague which until then had made political development impossible in the United States. More and more, as the years pass, does the meaning stand forth as the sole meaning.

What kind of people do we wish to become, and how do we know an American when we see one? Is it possible to pursue a common purpose without a common history or a standard text?

Germany is a country that has absolutely had to since the Second World War ask itself massive moral questions. And it's reforged its identity based on culture. I mean, the amount of artists living and working in Berlin is unparalleled. It's one of the strongest economies, not only in Europe, but globally, and it's because of its understanding of the importance of culture.

Celebration of Independence Day with great pomp and show was quite appropriate when we were fighting for independence which we had neither seen nor handled. Now we have handled it and we seem to be disillusioned. At least - I am, even if you are not. What are we celebrating today? Surely, not our disillusionment.

For over 200 years this has been a special country. A unique place where anyone from anywhere can achieve anything. But now millions of Americans feel like they're being left behind. Insecure in their future and unsafe in the face of terrorism.

English is a second language in most of the educated sectors of Europe and much of the world. But maybe in the future Chinese will be. But I doubt that national languages will disappear. In fact, to some extent they're becoming more diverse, like in Europe.

I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit new African surroundings.

The first thing I have at heart is American liberty; the second thing is American union.

It was [the concept of] nationalism that Indonesia was established on. Not the Javanese, not the Sumatran, not the Bornean, Sulawesi, Bali or others, but the Indonesian, that together became the foundation of one nationale staat (nation-state).