We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
Thomas Jefferson

None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.
Thomas Jefferson

A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today - and in fact we have forgotten.
John F. Kennedy

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
John F. Kennedy

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.
John F. Kennedy

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
Henry Ford

Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.
Dalai Lama

Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes her laws.
Mayer Amschel Rothschild

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.
Mahatma Gandhi

What is true of the individual will be tomorrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.
Mahatma Gandhi

It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.
George Washington

There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be.
Henry David Thoreau

Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish - too much handling will spoil it.
Lao Tzu

When a nation is filled with strife, then do patriots flourish.
Lao Tzu

Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it.
Lao Tzu

There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
George Washington

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.
Theodore Roosevelt

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.
Ernest Hemingway

Herb is the healing of a nation, alcohol is the destruction.
Bob Marley

As recent as the year 2000 we won elections by saying we shouldn't be the policemen of the world, and that we should not be nation building. And its time we got those values back into this country.
Ron Paul