James C. Scott Quotes

State Creation: A growth Industry.

It results from our having such quantities of land to waste as we please. In Europe the object is to make the most of their land, labour being abundant: here it is to make the most of our labour, land being abundant

Farmers are farmers in the first place because they have the deep-seated instinct to raise crops, not to cut them back, not to leave the land unproductive.

The land in Ireland is infinitely more peopled than anywhere else; and to give full effect to the natural resources of the country, a great part of the population should be swept from the soil.

Concentrate our strength in agriculture and increase our potential.

Population must increase rapidly, more rapidly than in former times, and ere long the most valuable of all arts will be the art of deriving a comfortable subsistence from the smallest area of soil.

It is nationalism which engenders nations, and not the other way round.

The cultivation of the earth, as the primary and most certain source of national supply ... has intrinsically a strong claim to pre-eminence over every other kind of industry.

She has a fertile soil, and genial climate; she has [vast] forests and abundant fisheries, unlimited water power, pastures upon which even during winter, innumerable flocks and herds can subsist, with no other care than the mere herding; and prairies which could with only moderate labor, furnish the whole of our Pacific Territories with bread.

We just don’t have enough money to be trying to create nations.

Nation building cannot be done on the cheap.

Until 1847 Switzerland remained a pure Confederation of States, that is to say, she took five and a half centuries to make the step which the United States achieved at once.

I'm a farmer! We have a farm that's part of the National Tropical Botanical Garden on Maui, and we raise macadamia nuts.

Being formed into a nation takes some doing.

Nations are not formed in a day, the formation requires years.

Agriculture is the greatest and fundamentally the most important of our industries. The cities are but the branches of the tree of national life, the roots of which go deeply into the land. We all flourish or decline with the farmer.

No foreign Power can consistently yield Comfort to Rebels, or enter into any kind of Treaty with these Colonies until they [the Colonies] declare themselves free and independent.

A country that does not have stable institutions and a clear constitution cannot be successful.

The American Revolution produced two new countries—The United States and Canada

The land of Peru begins at the Equator and extends southward. Its inhabitants … have a Jewish cast of feature, speak gutturally and are much given to unnatural vice. For this reason they reject their wives and pay them little respect. The women wear their hair very short and go naked except for a small apron with which they cover their private parts. It is they who sow and grind the corn which is eaten throughout the province…

Improving the productivity of crops is fundamental to ending extreme poverty. Sixty percent of people in sub-Saharan Africa earn their living by working the land. But given the region’s generally low agricultural productivity—yields of basic cereals are five times higher in North America—Africa remains a net importer of food. This gap between supply and demand will only grow as the number of mouths to feed increases.

Roads are essential to any type of agricultural development.

In antiquity, agriculture and industry depended completely on human labor; but now, with the development of natural forces that human labor cannot match, agriculture and industry have fallen completely into the hands of the capitalists. The greater the amount of capital, the more abundant the resources that can be utilized.

I want to pursue farming, and what better place to do it than at a hill station, which has a cool climate almost through the year.

The fundamental for the sustainable growth of Nigeria is not in the hydro-carbon industry but in agriculture.