Abroad? Oh no. I went to England in ’91, and you stood in the garden at Fontenay and berated me.” He shook his head. “This is my nation. Here I stay. A man can’t carry his country on the soles of his shoes.
When trouble arise among faraway people, we remain tempted to hide behind the principle of national sovereignty, to "mind our own business" when it is convenient, and to think of democracy as a suit to be worn in fine weather but felt in the closet w...
When the Viennese government compiled a Catalogue of Forbidden Books in 1765, so many Austrians used it as a reading guide that the Hapsburg censors were forced to include the Catalogue itself as a forbidden book.
What we call patriotism, in other words, is a calculable force which, released by a predictable situation, will animate man in a manner no different from other territorial species.
To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves: such a prohibition ought to fill them with disdain.
Issues of energy, climate change, nuclear arms control and non-proliferation are all big deals. These are problems that we have to get right globally, not just nationally, and there are big benefits in cooperating, in terms of sharing costs, in terms...
We, as Americans, do our level best to avoid being cruel to one another; we're led out of a diverse nation to come together and learn how to live with one another in a way that elevates everyone and our way of life. We've tried mightily to renew and ...
What spares us is memory,” he said. “It’s what makes us worth saving. However low we sink, whatever promise we no longer fulfill, we tell our stories. That’s why you’re so important, Charlie. You’re a guardian of our national memory.
Of all the fictions we heard last week in Tampa, the one I find most troubling is this: If we all just go our own way, our nation will be stronger for it. Because if we sever the threads that connect us, the only people who will go far are those who ...
Laura Bush went on national television during the week of my father's funeral and spoke out against embryonic stem cell research, pointing out that where Alzheimer's is concerned, we don't have proof that stem-cell treatment would be effective.
America pays its bills. It always has. It always will. The fact that Washington is now debating whether to honor its debts and obligations, then, should come as a surprise. But playing political football with a necessary vote to raise the nation's de...
You cannot learn from the mistakes of the past if you do not have the truth. You cannot make amends for mistakes if you do not have the truth. You cannot build a future if you do not have the truth. A nation cannot survive if it does not have the cou...
Maybe we like our politicians to appear like bumbling oafs. It certainly never did Ronald Reagan or George Bush any harm. The Italians still seem enamoured of Silvio Berlusconi - a man whose entry into a room is less likely to be greeted with the Ita...
Based on the people l've spoken to, I think the impression is: Is America safer from Al Qaeda? Yes. Is America weaker as a nation because we have overspent and over-focused on Al Qaeda? Yes. I think that would be the conclusion that people seem to ha...
I don't think you're going to be seeing the U.S. employing large army divisions to deal with small terrorist groups again. I don't think they're going to be occupying foreign nations in order to dry up terrorist groups within them. I think that lesso...
Those who served, and those who continue to serve in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard took an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and we can never forget the importance of their com...
I remember being a kid and seeing the 'National Inquirer' at the grocery store checkout line. When somebody actually picked up a copy, it was mortifying. You felt dirty for them. But now it's perfectly acceptable to read something like that. There's ...
I will be the first to admit that getting votes and getting an audience are two different things. For example, a politician really can't be elected if he's hated by half the people. A talk show host, however, can be an overwhelming national phenomeno...
So what is so strange about saying I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to reconstruct and reform this nation so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation? I want the country to survive. I want the country to succeed.
The British are the last national group who can be insulted by Hollywood without any comeback. These days if you depict Italians as gangsters, Saudis as terrorists or Mexicans as violent drug dealers you'll never hear the end of it. But as still the ...
Knowledge empowers people with our most powerful tool: the ability to think and decide. There is no power for change greater than a child discovering what he or she cares about. (Speech about Global Warming read on the National Mall for the 40th anni...
