National Behavior Quotes

It is with nations as it is with individuals. A book of history is a book of sermons.

Perhaps the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.

If people behaved in the same way nations do they would all be put in straitjackets.

Once all the Germans were warlike and mean But that couldn't happen again We taught them a lesson in nineteen eighteen And they've hardly bothered us since then

Some people who hated Americans set out to kill a lot of us and they succeeded [on 9/11]....We're trying to protect ourselves with more weapons. We have to do it, I guess, but it might be better if we figured out how to behave as a nation in a way that wouldn't make so many people in the world want to kill us.

People are people the world over. Some are good, some bad, some greedy and some generous. Nations are like people and act the same way.

North Korea is not an insane nation. It is not a crazy nation.

I see a lot of patterns in our behavior as a nation that parallel a lot of other historical processes.

Nations do pout.... It rarely means anything except to the pouters.

We Canadians are not given as a people to great patriotic displays.

You can read a lot about a country by looking at its beaches: across cultures, the beach is that rare public space in which all absurdities and quirky national behaviors can be found.

A nation is not going mad when it does extravagant things, so long as it does them in an extravagant spirit. But whenever we see things done wildly, but taken tamely, then the State is growing insane.

Grand strategies are not nearly so important as grand strategists like to think, because countries tend to be judged by their actions, not on their words…. History shows that grand strategies do not alter the trajectory of great power politics all that much.