Hamid Karzai Quotes

I try to put myself in others' shoes: How does any country give up any sovereignty and expect to survive as a government? I don't think that any Philippine president, or any leader for that matter, can afford to give up any portion of territorial sovereignty. That would be political suicide.

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

Russian democracy is the power of the Russian people with their own traditions of national self-government, and not the realisation of standards foisted on us from outside.

I have no time for those who say there is no way Scotland could go it alone. I know first-hand the contribution Scotland and Scots make to Britain's success - so for me there's no question about whether Scotland could be an independent nation.

The decisions and problems of Uruguay will be resolved by Uruguayans.

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

No group in this country should be permitted to influence our policy to the point it could endanger our national security

… the failure to evolve some plan by which India could be given a greater sense of independence and security in the future, has been a great disappointment to many people. One cannot help hoping that some new way will be worked out whereby the people of India may feel that the future belongs more surely to them in their own land.

This clutching hold of the E.U. is a sign of a lack of national self-confidence - which is not healthy.

Externally China desires independence, internally she seeks to maintain her existence as a nation; China therefore strives to loose the bonds that bind her people, and to complete the establishment of a new State.

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.

It can be rebuilt if other countries with selfish interests will not meddle, as has been done in the past.

The new Germany has the unquestionable right to hold its tongue between its teeth.

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

I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history and find their own way.

Who today is willing to say that Texas and California and the remainder of the Southwest would be better off if they were governed by Mexico?

I hope they're going to learn, and as a result of our response, that it isn't going to work. They're not going to change our life, they're not going to have us throw out our Constitution, and they're not going to chase us out of the Middle East.

People of all countries have the right to choose their own social system and road to development in the light of their national conditions and characteristics.

If the choice were made, one for us to lose our sovereignty and become a member of the Commonwealth or remain with our sovereignty and lose the membership of the Commonwealth, I would say let the Commonwealth go.

Each nation has to find its own path and follow that path at its own speed.

[America] 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, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standards of freedom …. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit.

The foreign policy of a socialist country is conducted on the basis of the principle of proletarian internationalism and a fundamental element of this principle is the recognition of the right of nations to self-determination.

The American nation cannot reach across the planet and pick the leadership of other countries.

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

Dignity is the issue that vexes billions of people around the world, not democracy…. People don't like to be told what to do by outsiders … Foreign intervention offends people's dignity.