Samuel Fortrey Quotes
Two things … appear to be chiefly necessary to make a nation great and powerful, which is to be rich and populous.
Samuel Fortrey, 1622-1681, English Economist, England’s Interest and Improvement, 1673
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
For hundreds of years most people of the world believed this. In the latter half of the 20th century, however, a very small nation, Israel, not only defended itself against nations many times their size but did so against the attacks of all of them together. The Israelis became so powerful that many in the world began to rethink the Gervaise principle and placed more value on the educational and technological competence of a nation. Modern technology eliminated the criticality of population size.
During her adult life, she was the de facto ruler of China. This quotation is very important because it gives us an important insight into Chinese motives and historical drivers. The first reason is something almost all countries and cultures can identify with, but the second--to avoid being looked down—was just as important. Americans are relatively uncaring what the citizens of other countries think about them, but the Chinese do. So do other nationalities and cultures like the Arabs, the Iranians, many of the South American cultures. Often it takes on a different world like “dignity” or “respect”.
Samuel Fortrey (1622–1681) was an English landowner and fen drainer, author of England's Interest and Improvement, consisting in the increase of the Store and Trade of this Kingdom (Cambridge, 1663).
