John Davies Quotes

The United States, a land of immigrants from every corner of the world, has been strengthened and unified because its newcomers have historically chosen ultimately to forgo their native language for the English language. We have all benefited from the sharing of ideas, of cultures and beliefs, made possible by a common language. We have all enriched each other.

I think if you live in a country, basically you share the dominant values of a country although you may disagree on issues all the time.

The Network Generation are secure in, and proud of, their Scottishness. Unlike my generation that grew up in the '80s, they don't see our sense of identity as under threat.

The making of an American begins at that point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and adopts the vesture of his adopted land.

A common language is critical to cohesion and national identity in an ethnically diverse society

I shall yet live to see it an English nation.

Britishness has got to be the foundation of the multicultural society in this country. Anything less than this is farcical and treacherous.

Australia has embraced migrants from all different races, making us one of the most multiracial nations on earth. Most have assimilated and are proud to call themselves Australians, accepting our culture, beliefs and laws. I welcome them from the bottom of my heart. As they integrate and assimilate, the disruption caused by diversity diminishes.

There is this myth, that America is a melting pot, but what happens in assimilation is that we end up deliberately choosing the American things - hot dogs and apple pie - and ignoring the Chinese offerings.

My grandparents bowed to the Americans and sought to learn from them. My parents sought to be them.

Extreme multiculturalism... is not the way to build this country.

Cinema plays an important role in uniting the entire nation as a single unit.

The policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the language, habits, and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them. Whereas by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, and laws: in a word, soon become one people.

Just because you came here in 1880, 1950, whenever, you became an American. You get to celebrate July 4th like every other American. You don't just get the good part. You get the bad part, too. You get all of it.

Multiculturalism, if its logic is fully played out, is the ideology of national suicide.

I want all people to be Indians first, Indian last and nothing else but Indians.

It's the culture, not the blood. If you can go anywhere in the world and adopt these babies and put them into households that were already assimilated in America, those babies will grow up as American as any other baby with as much patriotism and love of country as any other baby. It's not about race. It's never been about race. In fact the struggles across this planet, we describe them as race, they're not race. They're culture based. It's a clash of culture, not the race. Sometimes that race is used as an identifier.

So much of learning to be an American is learning not to let your individuality become a nuisance.

To me it's very obvious there are huge cultural differences between Americans and Canadians. But a lot of what we are is American.

The common schools are the stomachs of the country in which all people that come to us are assimilated within a generation. When a lion eats an ox, the lion does not become an ox but the ox becomes a lion.

The truth is, immigrants tend to be more American than people born here.

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism.

I want to say unequivocally that while I cherish every person who comes from anywhere, who comes here legally and seeks to pursue happiness, and I hope all of them decide to stay and become American citizens, but I want them to become American. And part of becoming American involved English. It is vital historically to assert and establish that English is the common language at the heart of our civilization.

We all have views on what our Irishness means to us. Two members of the band were born in England and were raised in the Protestant faith. Bono's mother was Protestant and his father was Catholic. I was brought up Catholic. U2 are a living example of the kind of unity of faith and tradition that is possible in Northern Ireland.

Eternal is the fact that the human creature born in Ireland and brought up in its air is Irish. I have lived for twenty years in Ireland and for seventy-two in England; but the twenty came first and in Britain I am still a foreigner and shall die one.