James K. Polk Quotes

Historically, we were always complaining about others interfering in our domestic and national issues.

We [the French] have to keep defending our vital interests …, we can say no, alone, to anything that may be unacceptable.

No nation is so lost to pride as to submit the conduct of its internal affairs to the arbitrament of foreign powers.

No country can decide for another county.

The U.N. can meet and discuss, but we don't need their permission.

I don't want the chair of the government because it will be controlled by the U.S. and I don't want to be controlled by the U.S.

The predominant yardstick of your government is not human rights but national interests.

I saw no reason why other nations should tell Central Americans how to solve their problems.

In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli.

I feel that the majority of people should decide for themselves what kind of government they want.

All members will refrain in their international relations from the threat or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.

The first duty of our Government to its own citizens and foreigners within its borders is the preservation of order. Unless and until that duty is met a government is not even eligible for recognition among the family of nations.

The government should not present the anomaly which it now presents—a government the freest, perhaps the most democratic in the world with reference to local and domestic matters in which you rule yourselves as fully as any people in the world, while in your foreign affairs, your relations with other countries, whether peaceful or warlike, commercial, financial, or otherwise, you may have no more voice than the people of Japan.

In a democracy the People are entitled to determine the Ends or general aims of foreign policy.

Above all, I had to fight for the image of the Kingdom, which meant standing up to the Americans to save our country from appearing an American dependency.

Nations are equal in respect to each other, and entitled to claim equal consideration for their rights, whatever may be their relative dimensions or strength, or however greatly they may differ in government, religion, or manners. This perfect equality, and entire independence of all distinct states, is a fundamental principle of public law. It is a necessary consequence of this equality that each nation has a right to govern itself as it may think proper, and no one nation is entitled to dictate a form of government or religion, or a course of internal policy, to another. No state is entitled to take cognizance or notice of the domestic administration of another state, or of what passes within it as between the government and its own subjects

We will not be forced to take any position by outside forces. Would you tolerate such a thing?

The United States supports the idea that every people should have the right to make a free choice as to the kind of government they want.

No foreign Power can consistently yield Comfort to Rebels, or enter into any kind of Treaty with these Colonies until they [the Colonies] declare themselves free and independent.

We don’t tell others how to run their countries.

This nation is able to legislate for its own people on every question, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation on earth.

Well, I think both Russia and China have a very strong aversion to interference in internal affairs.

Our position is that we do not accept conditions of any kind which may affect the independence and sovereignty of our country just with the view to solve economic problems existing between the United States and Cuba.

We don't need a strongman. But we need a strong country that is not subordinate to Europe.

No self-respecting country - especially one with our clout and proud history - should sign up to a proposal that surrenders the power to veto our foreign and trade policy to another entity.