Ethel Waters Quotes

If there’s such a thing as a thousand percent isolationist, I’m that.

We prefer to be isolated in Odisha. That is a policy of equidistance, and going it alone has served us well in the past.

My ardent desire is... to keep the United States free from political connexions with every other Country. To see that they may be independent of all, and under the influence of none.

It is well to be independent also well not to be neutral.

Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations,—entangling alliances with none.

My ardent desire is, and my aim has been, to comply strictly with all our engagements, foreign and domestic, but to keep the United States free from political connections with every other country; to see that they may be independent of all and under the influence of none.

The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.

I try to avoid political ties.

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.

I have never believed in being part of any one group or camp.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

Our plan was to have no Interest, Connection or Embarrassment in the Politicks or Wars of Europe, if we could avoid it.

… splendid isolation

[Commenting on foreign policy:] The Best politics is no politics.

Don't think we've ever convinced the American people that it's not in our interest to be isolationists. Our tendency for the first century, maybe century-and-a-half of our existence was to be isolationists, to hide behind the two mighty oceans, to become self-sufficient, and to follow Washington's caution not to become involved in foreign entanglements and alliances.

I've always acted alone. Americans like that immensely. Americans like the cowboy who leads the wagon train by riding ahead alone on his horse, the cowboy who rides all alone into the town, the village, with his horse and nothing else. Maybe even without a pistol, since he doesn't shoot. He acts, that's all, by being in the right place at the right time. In short, a Western. … This amazing, romantic character suits me precisely because to be alone has always been part of my style or, if you like, my technique

Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne, / He travels the fastest who travels alone.

… she [America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication

I belong to no party, and I am militant for no one.

I don't want to be identified with any political party.

I'm pretty much a loner. That's not good, bad, or indifferent.

We are a small country and we have limited influence so we are neutral.

I'm not after anything, I don't want to be part of politics, I don't want to be a part of anything.

My aim has been... to keep the United States... independent of all and under the influence of none.

There's no such thing as society.