The real problem is that through our scientific genius we’ve made of the world a neighborhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius we’ve failed to make of it a brotherhood.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“Rediscovering Lost Values,” sermon, Second Baptist Church, Detroit (28 Feb 1954)
(Source)
Quotations about:
international
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Omnipresent amid all the frenzy of Shanghai is that famous portrait, that modern icon. The faintly smiling, bland, yet somehow threatening visage appears in brilliant red hues on placards and posters, and is painted huge on the sides of buildings. Some call him a genius. Others blame him for the deaths of millions. There are those who say his military reputation is inflated, yet he conquered the mainland in short order. Yes, it’s Colonel Sanders.
P. J. O'Rourke (b. 1947) American humorist, editor
Eat the Rich, ch. 10 (1998)
You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the Moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, “Look at that, you son of a bitch.”
Edgar "Ed" Mitchell (1930-2016) American aviator, engineer, astronaut
(Attributed)
The earliest source I can find of the quote is in People (8 Apr 1974), where it appears as an epigraph for a story on Mitchell three years after his flight to the Moon.
The peace we seek and need means much more than mere absence of war. It means the acceptance of law, and the fostering of justice, in all the world.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
“Developments in Eastern Europe and the Middle East,” Broadcast Speech (31 Oct 1956)
It would be some time before I fully realized that the United States sees little need for diplomacy; power is enough. Only the weak rely on diplomacy. This is why the weak are so deeply concerned with the democratic principle of the sovereign equality of states, as a means of providing some small measure of equality for that which is not equal in fact. Coming from a developing country, I was trained extensively in international law and diplomacy and mistakenly assumed that the great powers, especially the United States, also trained their representatives in diplomacy and accepted the value of it. But the Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy. Nor does the United States. Diplomacy is perceived by an imperial power as a waste of time and prestige and a sign of weakness.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1922-2016) Egyptian politician, diplomat, UN Secretary-General (1992-1996)
Unvanquished: A U.S.-U.N. Saga (1999)
Always a friend to peace, & believing it to promote eminently the happiness & prosperity of mankind, I am ever unwilling that it should be disturbed, as long as the rights & interests of the nation can be preserved. but whensoever hostile aggressions on these require a resort to war, we must meet our duty, & convince the world that we are just friends & brave enemies.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Andrew Jackson (3 Dec 1806)
(Source)
Reading Lenin or Mao or Stalin, one is struck by the emphasis on the relationship between political, military, psychological, and economic factors … and on the need for dominating a situation by flexible tactics and inflexible purpose.
Henry Kissinger (b. 1923) German-American diplomat
“Reflections on American Diplomacy” (5), Foreign Affairs (Oct 1956)
One cannot suppress a certain indignation when one sees men’s actions on the great world-stage and finds, beside the wisdom that appears here and there among individuals, everything in the large woven together from folly, childish vanity, even from childish malice and destructiveness. In the end, one does not know what to think of the human race, so conceited in its gifts.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher
“Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose [Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht]” (1784) [tr. Beck (1963)]
(Source)
To a wise man, the whole earth is open; for the native land of a good soul is the whole earth.
[Ἀνδρὶ σοφῶι πᾶσα γῆ βατή· ψυχῆς γὰρ ἀγαθῆς πατρὶς ὁ ξύμπας κόσμος.]
Democritus (c. 460 BC - c. 370 BC) Greek philosopher
Frag. 247 (Diels) [tr. Freeman (1948)]
(Source)
Diels citation: "247. (168 N.)"; collected in Joannes Stobaeus (Stobaios) Anthologium III, 40, 7. Alternate translations:
- "To a wise man the whole earth is accessible; for the home country of a good soul is the whole world." [tr. Barnes (1987)]
- "The whole earth is open to the wise person, for the entire universe is the country of a good soul." [@sentantiq (2019)]
- "The whole world is home to a wise man with an upright spirit." [Source]
- "The wise man belongs to all countries, for the home of a great soul is the whole world."
To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required — not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
