Russell Means Quotes

The happiness of every country depends upon the character of its people, rather than the form of its government.

I think cinema is the memory and the imagination of the country. Take the memory and imagination out of an individual, and he stops being an individual. I think it's the same thing for a country.

My countrymen, I have given proofs that I am one most anxious for liberties for our country, and I am still desirous of them. But I place as a prior condition the education of the people, that by means of instruction and industry our country may have an individuality of its own and make itself worthy of these liberties.

Consumerism, what kind of car you have, what kind of house you have in the country and so on, and that is all very incidental when you examine the kind of person he may be. He may be a big bore, and then there is a person who hasn't done a thing in the world and he is a fascinating person.

Freedom and diversity guard each other, and if a country could form the whole of one's character, Napoleon III and Victor Hugo would have been the same person... if national identity means anything, it means something that comes with you wherever you go, and stays with you no matter how long you stay away.

The worse we treat people in this country, the more delicately we talk about them.

Literature is the voice of the age and the state; the character, energy, and resources of the country are reflected and imaged forth in the conceptions of its great minds; they are organs of the time; they speak not their own language, they scarce think their own thoughts; but under an impulse like the prophetic enthusiasm of old, they must feel and utter the sentiments which society inspires.

What can you pay for the way a man lives? What can you pay for what a man is?

Nationality is not a universal human principle but an historical, local fact...Every nation, even a small one, has its own character, its own particular way of life and manner of speaking, feeling, thinking, and behaving. These distinctive features are the essence of nationality, the product of a nation's entire history and conditions of existence. Every nation, like every individual, is of necessity what it is, and has an unquestionable right to be itself. So-called national rights consist precisely of this.

What we were most hoping to achieve with Shots Fired: empathy for all of the characters and conversations about our criminal justice system, which is broken on every level, from the street all the way up to the highest level of government.

If you are focusing your anger at government, you are focusing your anger at all of us. Government is just a personification of this country.

Respect for human rights is not social work; it is not merely an act of compassion. It is the first obligation of government and the source of its legitimacy.

Football isn't who we are, it doesn't necessarily define us. It's part of our life and it always will be, but football won't define us. Excellence does.

If we have learned anything in the past ten years, it is that these lovely things about America were never lovely. We have been expansionist and aggressive and mean to other people from the beginning. And we've been aggressive and mean to people in this country, and we've allocated the wealth of this country in a very unjust way. We've never had justice in our courts for the poor people, for black people, for radicals. Now how can we boast that America is a very special place? It's not that special. It really isn't.

I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as a moral example of the world.

The State is the sum total of the sacrifice, on its behalf, of its members.

I think there is no work of art which represents the spirit of a nation more surely than "Die Meister Singer" of Richard Wagner. Here is no plaything with local colour, but the raising to its highest power all that is best in the national consciousness of his country.

This is emphatically an age of discoveries; but I will venture the assertion, that none but an American slaveholder could have discovered that a man born in a country was not a citizen of it.

We're a country here, that if you take a picture of what America looks like, you can do It in a football stadium or a basketball court and you see all different kinds of Americans There. We're pretty proud of that, the different looking Americans that are still Americans.

America is greatest country; but not our government.

Why lower oneself to taking pride from being American or British, when you can boast of being man!

And to me, that's why the civil rights era is about the future, not about the past, because it's great lessons of how citizens can organize to call on the patriotic heritage of the country to tackle some of our most intractable problems and we need to do that again.

There were many generations of Latino people coming to this country, coming from difficult political or social situations in their own countries, and they worked very hard to have their kids go to universities. Well, those kids came out and they are now doctors and architects, or they are on the Supreme Court. That has a reflection in Hollywood. So, we are actually very proud that our characters are Latinos, and I think it's good for diversity and cultural interaction.

That's not what I want my children to hear. That's not representative of the country that I want my children to grow up in. And so that actually I found far more upsetting as a mom, as a woman, as an American, and even as my mother's daughter than anything they said about my mom.

Never esteem people (including yourself) more because they have money, nor think less of anyone (including yourself) because they lack it. Virtue is the only just reason for respecting anyone, lack of virtue the only reason for holding anyone in low regard.