James Connolly Quotes

The values that we talked about, the values democracy and free speech and international norms and rule of law, respecting the ability of other countries to determine their own destiny and preserve their sovereignty and territorial integrity. Things are not something that we can set aside.

There should be competition and exchanges between different countries, but there are certainly certain universal values, and that is freedom and democracy.

We learned in World War II that no single nation holds a monopoly on wisdom, morality or right to power, but that we must fight for the weak and promote democracy.

A world in which others controlled the course of their own development, would be a world in which the American system would be seriously endangered.

America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses.

America is the friend of all the liberties of the world. She is the guardian only of her own.

Today the Turkish nation is called on to defend its capacity for civilization, its right to life and independence – its entire future.

The sovereignty of republics is an historical inevitability.

America is not to be Rome or Britain. It is to be America.

[Czechoslovakia is] ... the godchild of the great and glorious Republic of the United States.

The world is not a big Red sea in which this country is being scuttled, but a vast arena of political upheaval, in which the quest for freedom, ever stronger, has overthrown the colonial empires of the past. It isn't a tidy world, nor is it a secure one. But it is one in which the United States set the revolutionary example.

Rome shall not rule America.

The Newly established United Nations must be a force for action and not merely a frothing of words.

As American freemen we can not but sympathize in all efforts to extend the blessings of civil and political liberty, but at the same time we are warned by the admonitions of history and the voice of our own beloved Washington to abstain from entangling alliances with foreign nations. In all disputes between conflicting governments it is our interest not less than our duty to remain strictly neutral

… she [America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She 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

Over there, in the East [Eastern Europe & Russia] they would … like to see us build socialism as they like it. But over here, in the West, some people don’t even want to let us start building it, even if we do so respecting freedom. I realize that this is a little risky on our part to pursue a road that is not always appreciated either over here or over there.

No country can decide for another county.

We must recognize that our objectives and the Kremlin's objectives are irreconcilable. The Kremlin wants to promote Communist dictatorships controlled from Moscow, whereas we want, as far as possible to see a world of governments responsive to the will of the people.

We shall liberate our country.

Every country must be absolutely free to adopt the type of economic, political and social system that it considers convenient.

We need a principled foreign policy that consistently and resolutely stands up for freedom.

Independence, the freedom of a self-governing nation, is in my estimation the highest political good, for which any disadvantage, if need be, and any sacrifice are a cheap price.

Most Arabs and Muslims feel that the United States hasn't really been paying much attention to their desires. They think it has been pursuing its policies for its own sake and not according to many of the principles that it claims are its own - democracy, self-determination, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, international law.

We want to be masters of our own destiny. We need no Gods or Emperors. We do not believe in the existence of any saviour. We want to be masters of the world and not instruments used by autocrats to carry out their wild ambitions. We want a modern lifestyle and democracy for the people. Freedom and happiness are our sole objectives in accomplishing modernisation.

Foreign policy that is obviously guided by interests, but that is very much also committed to shared values, so we have a platform, democracy, freedom, respect of human rights that we would like to see respected all over the world and also, a peaceful world order.