International Quotes - page 24
We want to make reparation to the Palestinian people for the crimes of Balfour which were committed in the building behind me, when one person, on behalf of one country, promised a second people the lands of a third people - the Palestinians. We are determined that we should stop the privatization of basic services of the British people. We are determined to defend the liberty of the British people which is being taken away day by day under the name of anti-terrorism. Ancient freedoms, which we had for hundreds of years, are being taken away from us under the name of the war on terror, when the real big terrorists are the governments of Britain and the United States. They are the real rogue states breaking international law, invading other people's countries, killing their children in the name of anti-terrorism, when in fact, all they're achieving is to make more terrorists in the world, not less, to make the world more dangerous, rather than less. These are our priorities.
George Galloway
After leaving [the International Exposition in Paris, with a lot of new machines], I went to see Courbet's exhibition; he has reduced the admission to ten cents. I stay there alone for nearly an hour and discover that the picture [ 'L'atélier' / the Painter's Studio - 1855] of his which they refused [for exposing on the official Salon in Paris ] is a masterpiece; I simply could not tear myself away from the sight of it.
Eugène Delacroix
The regime's response to [U. N. ] Security Council Resolution 1696 was predictable, as it was simply a variation of double talk-a tactic they have now mastered to an art form. What does the regime's offer to "seriously talk" really mean? Will it seriously discuss its violations of human rights at home? Will it seriously discuss its patronage of regional militancy? I think not. [This] is a race against time. Will it get the bomb first, thereby bullying the world into appeasement, or will there be an actual convergence of domestic and international pressures [on the regime]?
Reza Pahlavi
The international community invested much effort and hope in the Reformists, but they're pre-screened, pre-approved loyal opposition. More and more of their supporters are realizing it's futile to promote change from within because Iran's paramilitary mafia still occupy the top of the pyramid. Khamenei controls every apparatus of state: legislature, politics, information and military.
Reza Pahlavi
The free world must put pressure on Iran. It should no longer give in to the nuclear blackmail of a terrorist regime that is seeking to acquire the [atomic] bomb. The outside world should play the card of Iranians themselves, talking, no longer to the jailers, but to those who are jailed. One should no longer fall into the trap of changing seats for the cards are the same even if different ones are put on the table every now and then. What is necessary is a democratic civil disobedience campaign supported by the international community. From now on, the confrontation is inevitable.
Reza Pahlavi
I have vociferously rejected and expressed my opposition to any kind of military action against my homeland! There is a much better way – far less costly and more legitimate – to put an end to the principal source of militancy in our region: Supporting the people of Iran, as the most natural ally to the free world in their quest to rid themselves of the clerical regime. A combination of domestic pressure coupled with a cohesive international economic and diplomatic pressure will enable the people of Iran, an "army in place,” to rid themselves of the regime. It however very much concerns me that due to the mounting domestic problems the regime is faced with, it may in fact invite and seek such a confrontation.
Reza Pahlavi
There is but one thing you have to be concerned about, and that is that you keep foursquare with the principles of the international Socialist movement. It is only when you begin to compromise that trouble begins. So far as I am concerned, it does not matter what others may say, or think, or do, as long as I am sure that I am right with myself and the cause. There are so many who seek refuge in the popular side of a great question. As a Socialist, I have long since learned how to stand alone.
Eugene V. Debs
In 1869 that grand old warrior of the social revolution, the elder Liebknecht, was arrested and sentenced to prison for three months, because of his war, as a Socialist, on the Kaiser and on the Junkers that rule Germany. In the meantime the Franco-Prussian war broke out. Liebknecht and Bebel were the Socialist members in the Reichstag. They were the only two who had the courage to protest against taking Alsace-Lorraine from France and annexing it to Germany. And for this they were sentenced two years to a prison fortress charged with high treason; because, even in that early day, almost fifty years ago, these leaders, these forerunners of the international Socialist movement were fighting the Kaiser and fighting the Junkers of Germany. They have continued to fight them from that day to this. Multiplied thousands of Socialists have languished in the jails of Germany because of their heroic warfare upon the despotic ruling class of that country.
Eugene V. Debs
It is utterly unsocialistic, reactionary and in truth outrageous, and I hope you will oppose with all your power. The plea that certain races are to be excluded because of tactical expediency would be entirely consistent in a bourgeois convention of self-seekers, but should have no place in a proletarian gathering under the auspices of an international movement that is calling on the oppressed and exploited workers of all the world to unite for their emancipation.
Eugene V. Debs
There are some who object to war because of its immorality, there are some who shrink from the arbitrament of arms because of its increased cruelty and barbarity; there are a growing number who protest against this method, at the outset known to be unsuccessful, of attempting to settle international disputes because of its imbecility and futility. But there is not a living soul in any country who does not deeply resent having his passions roused, his indignation inflamed, his patriotism exploited, and his highest ideals desecrated by concealment, subterfuge, fraud, falsehood, trickery, and deliberate lying on the part of those in whom he is taught to repose confidence and to whom he is enjoined to pay respect.
Arthur Ponsonby
It is normal to hate what we fear, and it happens frequently, though not always, that we fear what we hate. I think it may be taken as the rule among primitive men, that they both fear and hate whatever is unfamiliar. They have their own herd, originally a very small one. And within one herd, all are friends, unless there is some special ground of enmity. Other herds are potential or actual enemies; a single member of one of them who strays by accident will be killed. An alien herd as a whole will be avoided or fought according to circumstances. It is this primitive mechanism which still controls our instinctive reaction to foreign nations. The completely untravelled person will view all foreigners as the savage regards a member of another herd. But the man who has travelled, or who has studied international politics, will have discovered that, if his herd is to prosper, it must, to some degree, become amalgamated with other herds.
Bertrand Russell
Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.
Theodore Roosevelt
Our whole strength will be put into this war of emancipation, -- emancipation from the threat and attempted mastery of selfish groups of autocratic rulers, -- whatever the difficulties and present partial delays. We are indomitable in our power of independent action and can in no circumstances consent to live in a world governed by intrigue and force. We believe that our own desire for a new international order under which reason and justice and the common interests of mankind shall prevail is the desire of enlightened men everywhere. Without that new order the world will be without peace and human life will lack tolerable conditions of existence and development. Having set our hand to the task of achieving it, we shall not turn back.
Woodrow Wilson
It's premature to talk about working alongside General Musharraf at this stage, although in the past we have worked jointly on certain issues such as the Women's Bill.
At the same time, I want you to know that we are also partners with Mr Nawaz Sharif in something called the charter for the restoration of democracy, so we are talking about a new democratic process in which the people of Pakistan are allowed to choose their leader and put together a coalition. And for that we are calling for a robust international monitoring team to ensure that these elections are fair and free because obviously if they're not, the ruling party will still be in the driver's seat and the creeping Talebanisation of Pakistan will continue.
Benazir Bhutto
There are prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that have not been tried, have no legal representation, their families cannot see them and are obviously kept in a strange land outside their own country. There is no international monitoring of their conditions and fate. No one knows whether they are prisoners, POWs, accused or criminals. European investigators have confirmed the existence of secret prisons in Europe too.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Who had used the mysterious September 11 incident as a pretext to attack Afghanistan and Iraq, killing, injuring and displacing millions of people. Whose military spending exceeded $1,000 billion dollars annually - more than the military budgets of all countries in the world combined? Who dominated the policy-making establishments of the world's economy, as well as the Security Council, which was ostensibly responsible for safeguarding international security? Do these arrogant Powers really have the competence and ability to run or govern the world? "Can the flower of democracy bloom from [North Atlantic Treaty Organization's] missiles, bombs and guns?
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
