George Washington Quotes

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.

I claim for Canada this, that in future Canada shall be at liberty to act or not act, to interfere or not interfere, to do just as she pleases, and that she shall reserve to herself the right to judge whether or not there is cause for her to act.

I think I see a free and independent kingdom delivering up that which all the world hath been fighting for …, to wit a power to manage their own affairs by themselves without the assistance and counsel of any other.

I hope we shall never be disposed to offer to join the United States. They will display a great reluctance to take us but I believe we have a future of our own here.

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.

Peace upon any other basis than national independence, peace purchased at the cost of any part of our national integrity, is fit only for slaves, and even when purchased at such a price it is a delusion, for it cannot last.

Please don't intervene. Please leave us alone. It is my job and we can cope with this matter. We are trying to explain this to foreigners. But if they do not understand or ignore our explanation, I don't care because we are not begging them for food.

The Declaration of Independence pronounced the irrevocable decree of political separation, between the United States and their people on the one part, and the British king, government, and nation on the other.

I have always regarded nonalignment as a statement that India's policies - foreign policy - will be guided by what I describe as 'enlightened national interest.' That means we will make judgments on an independent basis with the sole concern being what is enlightened India's national interest.

Not like other countries, we will never ask anyone to fight for us.

Independence means we enjoy freedom. We are not colonised by people. And we can govern our own country and develop it independently so that our people can live a better life.

We show each day that we are prepared to act as an independence state... Not just in exceptional moments.

A nation has a right to manage its own concerns as it thinks fit.

It's not radical Islam that worries the US -- it's independence

No people without a government of their own can expect to be treated on the same level as people of independent sovereign states. It is far better to be free to govern or misgovern yourself than to be governed by anybody else . . .

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.

You are on your own in a big world, in which you are one of many nations, some small, some medium sized, some large. You are nobody's boss and nobody is your boss.

I believe that every people and every nation has the right to be free and independent.

I thank God that I have lived to see my country independent and free. She may long enjoy her independence and freedom if she will. It depends on her virtue.

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

I have tasted freedom. I will not give up that which I have tasted.

To be called a sovereign nation, a nation has to be able to control its own borders. It is controlling your own destiny in a way, and we don't control our own borders.

America was born out of a desire for self-determination, a longing for the human dignity that only independence can bring.

Liberty means more to me than life itself.

I don't have a saviour or a royal family.