Country Quotes - Page 797

The dark aftermath of the frontier, of the vast promise of possibility this country first offered, is an inflated sense of American entitlement today. We want what we want, and we want it now. Easy credit. Fast food. A straight shot down the interstate from point A to point B. The endless highway is crowded with the kinds of cars large enough to take a mountain pass in high snow. Instead they are used to take children from soccer practice to Pizza Hut. In the process they burn fuel like there's no tomorrow. Tomorrow's coming.

The world has got more democracies than ever, and human rights are high on almost every country's agenda. Still, corruption and oppression are far too common threats to the democratic society. And we have seen a dramatic increase, the last 10-15 years, of ethnical conflicts and humanitarian crises with human rights violations as important elements., but also more of corruption. Human rights are praised more than ever - and violated as much as ever.

Humanity from the first has had its vultures and sharks, and representatives of the fraternity who prey upon mankind may be expected no less in America than elsewhere. That this virulence breaks out most readily and commonly against colored persons in this country, is due of course to the fact that they are, generally speaking, weak and can be imposed upon with impunity. Bullies are always cowards at heart.

I mean, I think a healthy country is a country where people are healthy physically, and a smart country is a country where people are educated.

The ways of living have been rendered vastly easier by a multitude of inventions, by the increasing wealth of the country, by better and more intelligent service; and yet life is by no means easier, but indeed hard. The demands on time, whether real or imagined, have increased in a greater ratio than the supply of facilities for answering them, and as the earth provokingly continues to revolve on its axis just as rapidly as of old, the days are never long enough for all the duties which they bring.

I do recognize the most valuable work being done across the country is that work being done inside the four walls in our homes. And let us not forget how important the work of the mother and father are to raising responsible citizens.

Whenever I saw her, I felt like I had been living in another country, doing moderately well in another language, and then she showed up speaking English and suddenly I could speak with all the complexity and nuance that I hadn't realized was gone. With Lucy I was a native speaker.

I think there are more transgendered in America than there are people who worry about the comfort and security who broke in our country illegally, who are living here illegally, are taking jobs illegally, how quickly it moves doesn't really matter.

Yet, when Republicans were finally able to push through tough policies on crime and welfare which they'd supported for decades, they were magnificent successes for the entire country, but especially for black people. Release us, and great things will happen!

Ironically, since Obama was elected, for the first time in my life I'm sometimes not proud of my country.

The only sexism involved in the Miers nomination is the administration's claim that once they decided they wanted a woman, Miers was the best they could do. Let me just say, if the top male lawyer in the country is John Roberts and the top female lawyer is Harriet Miers, we may as well stop allowing girls to go to law school.

...Sean Penn claimed to be 'serv[ing] the country' by giving aid and comfort to an enemy about to be attacked by the US. He said it made him feel more patriotic to dissent from the war aims of his nation. It is at least a counterintuitive position. Most people would not instantly grasp how it is more patriotic to always root against America. White supremacists should try claiming that burning crosses is more supportive of civil rights than not burning them.

Bush won the largest popular vote in history with a 3.5 million margin. Indeed, simply by getting a majority of the country to vote for him - the left's most hated politician since Richard Nixon - Bush did something rock star Bill Clinton never did. Bush maintained or increased his vote in every state but Vermont.

If you don't hate Clinton and the people who labored to keep him in office, you don't love your country.

This is no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals directly involved in this particular terrorist attack.... We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.

The first victim in journalism today is proximity. I know I've used that word a lot. Because of foreign budgets, newspapers have consolidated, and journalists now cover dozens of countries at a time. It is physically not possible for one person to understand and live the unique sets of experiences in all these places in honest and meaningful ways. Outlets used to send journalists to places like Congo for months at a time, and they were stationed there for months or years. There was a sense of immersive reporting, and that has been a casualty of the shift in news over the past years.

Over the last year, the RNC has made an unprecedented effort to engage Hispanic communities across Florida and around the country. Here in Florida the RNC has hired a diverse group of Hispanic staffers who are growing and reaching out to our community, to them I offer my most sincere gratitude.

Trump is, to some extent, redefining what we think of as polarization in this country. Where polarization has been seen as ideological, it is now being seen almost as behavioral.

Like a lot of people, I had this naive hope that Barack Obama would fix everything quickly. You know, the culture of celebrity in this country leads us away from democratic ways of thinking and into this hero worship. And so of course, one man cannot swoop in and fix everything on his own. It's much more complicated and difficult than that, and progressives in this country since then have had to come to terms with the fact that we need to do more than actually get out of our house and vote. It's an ongoing process to turn the tide.

We are at this moment where what concerns me is that we're all so caught up in Donald Trump, James Comey, and David Kushner, and Mike Flynn, that it's in danger of overwhelming the real story, which is what the Russians did and tried to do. I contend that it was the most serious attack on our country since September 11, 2001. It was deliberate, it was sophisticated, it was conscious, and it was in some ways successful.

I wanted to educate myself about the world and I wanted to know what was happening to people in other countries. I feel now I have only just begun.

I had a lovely experience once in Africa working with the U.N. when a president of a country met me about refugee issues and said ‘What do you do?’ I said ‘I‘m an actor.’ He replied ‘I heard that was a very difficult job and might not be the smartest job to do.’ It was lovely.

I want to work; then, as my kids get older, I want to have adventures. I want to visit all their countries: learn and live inside all their cultures.

Brad got me this great thing for Christmas. It's a bookshelf that has a book on every religion. That's how we plan to raise our kids. Teach them about all religions. They can pick one or be a student of all of them. We'll celebrate Kwanzaa for our girl. We'll celebrate moon and water festivals for our boys. We'll take them to temples in certain countries. Also to church.

We talk about orphanages, we talk about their countries and differences, and it’s a source of excitement and pride. I’ve heard Maddox explain to Zahara when they are talking about pregnancy, ‘No, Zee, remember, you were in that nice African woman’s belly. I was in that nice Cambodian woman’.