William H. Seward Quotes

There are three thing which make a nation great and prosperous: a fertile soil, busy workshops, easy conveyance for men and goods from place to place.

The enhancement of the profits of agriculture, the excitement of manufacturing industry, the activity of internal trade, the benefits of lucrative traffic; the interchange of valuable commodities – the commerce of fertile, remote, and wide-spread regions, and the approximation of the most distant parts of the Union, by the facility and rapidity of communication that will result from the completion of these stupendous works, will spread the blessings of plenty and opulence to an immeasurable extent. The resources of the State are fully adequate without extraneous aid; and when we consider that every portion of the nation will feel the animating spirit and vivifying influences of these great works; that they will receive the benediction of posterity and command the approbation of the civilized world; we are required to persevere by every dictate of interest, by every sentiment of honor, by every injunction of patriotism, and by every consideration which ought to influence the councils and govern the conduct of a free, high-minded, enlightened, and magnanimous people.

Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expense of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level with those of the neighborhood of the town. They are upon that the greatest of all improvements.

Africa will thrive.

We will strive to make Taiwan a better place and enable our people to live better lives.

The commerce of the United States is essential, if not to their existence, at least to their comfort, their growth, prosperity, and happiness. The genius, character, and habits of the people are highly commercial. Their cities have been formed and exist upon commerce. Our agriculture, fisheries, arts, and manufactures are connected with and depend upon it. In short, commerce has made this country what it is, and it can not be destroyed or neglected without involving the people in poverty and distress.

In most parts of our world, the rural community dominates. The numbers of people in rural communities in the Islamic world, plus the difficulty of addressing the problems of development in rural communities, is a central issue.

The prosperity of a people depends upon such facts as the natural wealth of the country in which they live, their social discipline and industrial character, the result of generations, of centuries, it may be, of tradition.

I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and canals and the improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in the National Legislature to provide them might be exercised with signal advantage to the general prosperity.

Africa needs roads. Roads bring know-how and fertilizer to farmers and ideas and business for commerce.

The way forward for Africa is investment.

I have to try and uplift the standard of living for the people in Zambia. If I cannot do that, I will have failed.

The progress of freedom depends more upon the maintenance of peace, the spread of commerce and the diffusion of education, then upon the labors of cabinets and foreign offices.

… a people occupied as we are in opening rivers, digging navigable canals, making roads

20 centuries of progress have brought the average citizen a vote, a national anthem, a Ford, a bank account and a high opinion of himself but not the capacity to live in high density without befouling and denuding his environment.

In our State the locomotive has waked up the sleeping energies of a great people, and is transforming wasted fields into blooming gardens, and arousing men and women from the dull and heavy sleep that dwells with satisfaction upon the past, into the bright intelligence that looks to a glorious future ….

Debt relief without the opening of markets will not relieve third world countries from their poverty.

America’s history is the history of her transportation.

We have to educate our way to a better economy.

We have no longer States that are necessarily only planting States. None are excluded from achieving that diversification of pursuits among the people which brings wealth and contentment.

Since the day that we first trod the soil of these valleys, have we received any assistance from our neighbors? No, we have not. We have built our homes, our cities, have made our farms, have dug our canals and water ditches, have subdued this barren country, have fed the stranger, have clothed the naked, have immigrated the poor from foreign lands, have placed them in a condition to make all comfortable and have made some rich. We have fed the Indians to the amount of thousands of dollars yearly, have clothed them in part, and have sustained several Indian wars, and now we have built thirty-seven miles of railroad. All this having been done, are our cities, our counties and the Territory in debt? No, not the first dollar.

America…could within twenty years bring us to a degree of development which Turks, left to themselves, would not be able to achieve in a century. It would make Turkey prosperous, rich and happy and turn Turks into a strong and civilized nation.

It’s the private sector that produces the jobs, but the private sector needs roads and an educated workforce.

Except for a few oil-rich countries, no developing country has successfully modernized without slowing population growth.

The greatness of the Erie Canal is the American equal only of its equality and liberty.