For ourselves and for the present, we are safe; our immediate peril is past. But for how long are we safe; and how far have we removed our peril? If our nation could not itself exist half slave and half free, are we sure that it can exist in a world half slave and half free? Is the same conflict less irrepressible when world wide than it was eighty years ago when it was only nation wide? Right knows no boundaries, and justice no frontiers; the brotherhood of man is not a domestic institution.
Learned Hand (1872-1961) American jurist
“A Pledge of Allegiance,” speech, Central Park, New York City (1945-05-20)
(Source)
His second "I Am an American Day" address. Collected in The Spirit of Liberty (1953).
Quotations about:
internationalism
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You know no Nation has a monopoly on good things, each one has something that the others could well afford to adopt.
Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love the land of our nativity, only as we love all other lands. The interests, rights, and liberties of American citizens are no more dear to us than are those of the whole human race. Hence we can allow no appeal to patriotism, to revenge any national insult or injury.
William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) American abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, social reformer
Declaration of Sentiments, Boston Peace Conference ( 28 Sep 1838)
(Source)
I find myself always struck and stimulated by a good anecdote, any trait of heroism, of faithful service. I do not find that the age or country makes the least difference; no, nor the language the actor spoke, nor the religion which they professed, — whether Arab in the desert, or Frenchman in the Academy. I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion of well-doing and daring, men of sturdy truth, men of integrity and feeling for others.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“The Preacher,” lecture, Cambridge (1879-05-05)
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