We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of other Nations, far away. We have learned that we must live as men and not as ostriches, nor as dogs in the manger.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
Speech (1945-01-20), Inaugural Address, Washington, D.C.
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(Source (Audio); dialog verified)
Quotations about:
international affairs
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If I solve my dispute with my neighbor by killing him, I have certainly solved the immediate dispute. If my neighbor was a scoundrel, then the world is no doubt better for his absence. But in killing my neighbor, though he may have been a terrible man who did not deserve to live, I have made myself a killer — and the life of my next neighbor is in greater peril than the life of the last.
Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
Speech (1968-02-10), “A Statement Against the War in Vietnam,” Kentucky Conference on the War and the Draft, University of Kentucky
(Source)
Collected in The Long-Legged House, Part 2 (1971).
So we started in to pay some attention to our neighbors to the south. Up to now our calling card to Mexico or Central America had been a gunboat or a bunch of Violets shaped like Marines. We could never understand why Mexico wasent just crazy about us; for we always had their good-will, and Oil and coffee and minerals, at heart.
Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Essay (1928-05-12), “More Letters from a Self-Made Diplomat to His President,” Saturday Evening Post, Vol. 200, No. 46
(Source)
Excerpted in Donald Day (ed.), The Autobiography of Will Rogers, ch. 14 (1949), which indicates Rogers' trip to Mexico was in December 1927. The text there is the same except at the very beginning, where it reads "We've started in to pay ..."
Shortened variant:I see where we are starting to pay some attention to our neighbors to the south. We could never understand why Mexico wasn't just crazy about us, for we have always had their good will, and oil and minerals, at heart.
Nations, like individuals, do not always see alike or think alike, and international cooperation and progress are not helped by any Nation assuming that it has a monopoly of wisdom or of virtue.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
Message (1945-01-06) to Congress, Annual Message (State of the Union)
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In 1945, Roosevelt delivered the SOTU as a written message to Congress, not as a speech.
We will not be intimidated by the threats of dictators that they will regard as a breach of international law or as an act of war our aid to the democracies which dare to resist their aggression. Such aid is not an act of war, even if a dictator should unilaterally proclaim it so to be.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
Speech (1941-01-06) to Congress, Annual Message (State of the Union), “Four Freedoms,” Washington, D. C.
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The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Essay (1969-02-27), “Reflections on Violence,” The New York Review of Books
(Source)
Revised and collected in On Violence, ch. 1 (1970).
What could be more absurd, to begin with, than our attitude of high moral outrage against other nations for manufacturing the selfsame weapons that we manufacture? The difference, as our leaders say, is that we will use these weapons virtuously, whereas our enemies will use them maliciously — a proposition that too readily conforms to a proposition of much less dignity: we will use them in our interest, whereas our enemies will use them in theirs.
Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
Essay (1999), “The Failure of War,” Citizenship Papers (2003)
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Though progress may be slow, it may be steady and sure. A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience and many have been precipitated by reckless haste.
Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) American diplomat, statesman
Speech (1952-09-09), “World Policy,” Veterans Memorial Auditorium, San Francisco, California
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In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor — the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others — the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
Speech (1933-03-04), Inaugural Address, Washington, D.C.
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(Source (video); text confirmed)