Sergei Lavrov Quotes

I desperately want Scotland to be an independent country. I cannot, though, sit here and tell you definitively that it will happen, and that it will happen on this timescale, because I have to respect the opinion of the people of Scotland.

The independence of all political and other bother is a happiness.

The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.

If the Iraqis fail to implement the reforms, if they fail to get a handle on the violence, there's nothing the United States can do, militarily or otherwise, that can solve those problems. They have to assume the primary responsibility to govern themselves.

There is no question that Taiwan is a state in any political science definition of a state.

I want to emphasize the fact that the independence of Kosovo should and will be recognized.

Iraq assumes responsibility for its own future... They have got to step up.

Sovereignty is as necessary as ever.

I claim for Canada this, that in future Canada shall be at liberty to act or not act, to interfere or not interfere, to do just as she pleases, and that she shall reserve to herself the right to judge whether or not there is cause for her to act.

In the 1999 resolution regarding Taiwan's future passed by the Democratic Progressive Party, it is stated very clearly that any change to the status quo of Taiwan must be decided by the people of Taiwan through referenda.

We need to give the Iraqis a chance to build their own future. It should be in their hands. It must be in their hands. That is what democracy is all about. We can teach it, we can explain it, but they must want it enough to make it work for them.

We are as good judges of our interest and safety, and the means of preserving them, as the non-slaveholding States are of theirs, and rather better than they can be of ours.

I think there really is no shortcut to sovereignty.

I am wholeheartedly in favour of an independent Scotland.

The world consists of, and is divided by, sovereign states which recognize no superior authority.

The same effort that would get us Dominion Home Rule will get us a Republic.

Let us keep clear of interfering with their [Egypt’s] internal affairs; let us leave reforms to them and their peoples.

These colonies are, and of right ought to be, individual states.

American interests dictate that we teach other peoples to govern themselves.

Sovereignty is not the birthright of a ruler. Every man, woman and child will shout 'Quit Kashmir'. The Kashmiri nation has expressed its will. I ask for a plebiscite on this question.

In Vietnam also, the right of self-determination applies even if free elections turn out to be unfavorable.

The organization of independent nations which has followed the disappearance of the Holy Roman Empire is in the main the outgrowth of that progress in civilization which leads peoples to seek the liberty of local self-government according to their own ideas.

This nation is able to legislate for its own people on every question, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation on earth.

We believe in freedom, freedom for the people of each country to follow their destiny without external interference.

The state has got to be its own master. The modalities of civic life may not be prescribed for it through any power standing outside of that state - be it a private person or be it a community superior, collateral, or subordinate to that state.