Popular quotes about Europe! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
In 2003, at the time I made my "Old Europe" comment, the center of gravity in NATO and Europe had long since shifted to the East. With the former Warsaw Pact countries joining NATO, the alliance has a different mix today. Some people were sensitive about my comment because they thought it was a pejorative way of highlighting demographic realities. Apparently they felt it pointed a white light at a weakness in Europe - an aging population. Europe has come some distance since World War II in becoming Europe.
Donald RumsfeldIn Europe, the Enlightenment of the 18th century was seen as a battle against the desire of the Church to limit intellectual freedom, a battle against the Inquisition, a battle against religious censorship. And the victory of the Enlightenment in Europe was seen as pushing religion away from the center of power. In America, at the same time, the Enlightenment meant coming to a country where people were not going to persecute you by reason of your religion. So it meant a liberation into religion. In Europe, it was liberation out of religion.
Salman RushdieI'm optimistic about Turkey's prospects for reaching the E.U.'s standards of development, governance, and democracy, whether inside or outside the E.U. Provided you have a prosperous, rational society in Turkey that can interact with Europe and the West, I don't really care what kind of institutional arrangement you have. The point to make about Turkey and Europe is that it's a very long, drawn-out process. What's important is that the process not be stopped, that Turkey and Europe evolve in the right direction, on a path of convergence. Convergence is the name of the game.
Andrew MangoA democratic Europe of nation states could be a force for liberty, enterprise and open trade. But, if creating a United States of Europe overrides these goals, the new Europe will be one of subsidy and protection
Margaret ThatcherIf you think about it, in the most dramatic moments of its history Europe has always turned to philosophy and, in turn, philosophy has interrogated itself about the destiny of Europe as something that touches its very essence.
Roberto EspositoIt is the women of Europe who pay the price while war rages, and it will be the women who will pay again when war has run its bloody course and Europe sinks down into the slough of poverty like a harried beast too spent to wage the fight. It will be the sonless mothers who will bend their shoulders to the plough and wield in age-palsied hands the reaphook.
Kate Richards O'HareUnless we are able to commit to a permanent growing settlement [on Mars], then I don't think just going there with humans and coming back is worth doing. The expense of planning to come back is like the people who left Europe to come to America and then to turn around and go back to Europe, it really doesn't make any sense at all.
Buzz AldrinThe story of my grandmother is that of a French woman from the provinces who through her perseverance and thirst for knowledge worked her way up to become the head of a school. She belonged to a generation that didn't travel much. But she believed in Europe and she wanted Europe. And she read a lot - she knew mythology, literature and the classics very well. She passed that on to me, along with the conviction that you can earn your own position in society.
Emmanuel MacronLibya faces along to the Mediterranean and had been effectively the cork in the bottle of Africa. So all problems, economic problems and civil war in Africa - previously people fleeing those problems didn't end up in Europe because Libya policed the Mediterranean. That was said explicitly at the time, back in early 2011 by Gaddafi: 'What do these Europeans think they're doing, trying to bomb and destroy the Libyan State? There's going to be floods of migrants out of Africa and jihadists into Europe', and this is exactly what happened.
Julian AssangeThere is no real peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on a basis of national sovereignty. (โฆ) They must have larger markets. Their prosperity is impossible, unless the States of Europe form themselves in a European Federation.
Jean MonnetEurope is good at many things, which is why we are the largest exporter in the world. Thirty million people in Europe are employed in making our exports of goods and services. Just under 900 thousand of them are in Sweden.
Cecilia MalmstromIn the preface to his great History of Europe, H. A. L. Fisher wrote: "Men wiser than and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following upon another as wave follows upon wave ..." It seems to me that the same is true of the much older [geological stratigraphical] history of Europe.
D. V. AgerThere is a structural difference between the way that Europe views Israel, and America views Israel. The European view is informed by the importance of colonialism in Europe's past. So for Europeans we are like Belgiums in the Congo, or the French in Alger, or the British in India. Strange interlopers in somebody else's land. But in fact, we [Israeli] have been here for 4,000 years. This is our ancestral homeland.
Benjamin NetanyahuWith Christianity, freedom and equality became the two basic concepts of Europe; they are themselves Europe.
Peter DruckerIndia is like Europe. This means there isone currency and numerous languages andcultures. And this is a 'Europe' made up ofvarious cultures.
Raj ThackerayMy father ain't in Europe; my father's in a better place than Europe." Winterbourne imagined for a moment that this was the manner in which the child had been taught to intimate that Mr. Miller had been removed to the sphere of celestial reward. But Randolph immediately added, "My father's in Schenectady.
Henry JamesTo be influential in tomorrow's world, to defend our values and our development model, France needs Europe and Europe needs France.
Francois HollandeI'll tell you what the danger is for Europe. It's carrying out a cold war against Russia and pushing Russia into China's arms. That's the threat to Europe.
Marine Le PenEurope today is the most secular region in the world. Europe is the only region in the world experiencing population decline. Wherever you turn today the more religious the community, the larger on average are their families.
Jonathan SacksWe [black actors] are more respected in Europe, because in Europe, I'm not a black actor - I'm an action star. In America, I'm a black actor.
Fred WilliamsonWherever they went the Irish brought with them their books, many unseen in Europe for centuries and tied to their waists as signs of triumph, just as Irish heroes had once tied to their waists their enemies' heads. Where they went they brought their love of learning and their skills in bookmaking. In the bays and valleys of their exile, they reestablished literacy and breathed new life into the exhausted literary culture of Europe. And that is how the Irish saved civilization.
Thomas CahillFrom the beginning, we failed to overcome Europe's division. The Berlin Wall fell, but invisible walls were moved to the East of Europe. This has led to mutual misunderstandings and assignments of guilt. They are the cause of all crises ever since.
Vladimir PutinWorld War Two was a world war in space. It spread from Europe to Japan, to the Soviet Union, etc. World War Two was quite different from World War One which was geographically limited to Europe. But in the case of the Gulf War, we are dealing with a war which is extremely local in space, but global in time, since it is the first 'live' war.
Paul VirilioThe importance of the term "genocide" for many Indigenous Peoples is that it is more than a term or an accusation; it is a word created in the wake of the Shoah in Europe to describe what happens when a people are targeted by a government for extermination, as were the Jews of Europe, and which is the term used in the most important international law related to concerned Indigenous Peoples, as the only international human rights law that pertains specifically to collectivities of people rather than individuals.
Roxanne Dunbar-OrtizEven in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of man. Science has liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example has kindled feelings of right in the people. An insurrection has consequently begun of science talents and courage against rank and birth, which have fallen into contempt. It has failed in its first effort, because the mobs of the cities, the instrument used for its accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty and vice, could not be restrained to rational action. But the world will soon recover from the panic of this first catastrophe.
Thomas JeffersonEverything that came out of Europe, every blue-eyed thing, is already an American. And as long as you and I have been over here, we aren't Americans yet.
Malcolm XThe equilibrium you admire in me is an unstable one, difficult to maintain. My inner life was split early between the call of the Ancestors and the call of Europe, between the exigencies of black-African culture and those of modern life.
Leopold Sedar SenghorNot material or economic conditions in the ordinary sense, but perverse religious ideas explain the suspension of civilization in Europe from the 5th to the 12th century, and in the Mohammedan world after the 15th century.
Joseph McCabeNow, the entire world community recognizes Georgia. We are members of the United Nations and the Council of Europe. Everything is being prepared so that we will soon enter the European Union.
Eduard ShevardnadzeThe twentieth century saw a professionalization of fiction writing, particularly in its second half and particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world - not so much mainland Europe, for example. This professionalization is a tragedy. Hand in hand with this - and I have no idea what the causal relations are - there has been a rise in the idea of The Author, so that today one often has the impression that what's selling the book is not the book but the author.
Zia Haider Rahmanlove as a passionโit is our European specialtyโmust absolutely be of noble origin; as is well known, its invention is due to the Provencal poet-cavaliers, those brilliant, ingenious men of the "gai saber," to whom Europe owes so much, and almost owes itself.
Friedrich NietzscheIve never taken a vacation. Ive never been to Europe. Every time I planned to do something big, I got a job, and I could never pass that up.
Dan LauriaThough a wide ocean separates the United States from Europe, yet there are various considerations that warn us against an excess of confidence or security.
Alexander HamiltonAcknowledge that a more closely integrated Europe is no longer an unqualified American interest.
Richard PerleIt's time for a recovery and reassessment of North American thinkers. Marshall McLuhan, Leslie Fiedler and Norman O. Brown are the linked triad I would substitute for Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, whose work belongs to ravaged postwar Europe and whose ideas transfer poorly into the Anglo-American tradition.
Camille PagliaThey [leaders in Western Europe] do not misuse financial instruments, financial injections, but, first of all, seek structural change. This is urgent for our economy as well, maybe even more urgent bearing in mind the problem that we cannot yet deal with, namely the prevalence of the oil and gas sector in the Russian Federation and, as a result, dependence on revenue from oil and gas.
Vladimir PutinEurope was a horrible place. There was nothing on TV. The food was terrible. And they don't even have ice. Who doesn't have ice?
Johnny RamoneAmerica is a new country, and maybe patriotism helps Americans create unity, since it is a melting pot. But nationalism in Europe has a strong history, as you may know.
Thomas BangalterSince Europe is dependent on imports of energy and most of its raw materials, it can be subdued, if not quite conquered, without all those nuclear weapons the Soviets have aimed at it simply through the shipping routes and raw materials they control.
Barbara AmielIf Europe were once united in the sharing of its common inheritance there would be no limit to the happiness, the prosperity, and the glory which its three or four million people would enjoy.
Winston ChurchillThere used to be the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. There used to be Soviet troops in the GDR. And we must honestly admit that they were occupation troops, which remained in Germany after WWII under the guise of allied troops. Now these occupation troops are gone, the Soviet Union has collapsed, and the Warsaw Pact is no more. There is no Soviet threat, but NATO and U.S. troops are still in Europe. What for?
Vladimir PutinIt's easy to forget how central the French people are in everything we mean when we say Europe.
John Dos PassosWhoa, Dimitri," I said, tossing my bag on the floor. "I realize this is actually a current hit in Eastern Europe right now, but do you think we could maybe listen to something that wasn't recorded before I was born?โ Only his eyes flicked toward me; the rest of his posture remained the same. "What does it matter to you? I'm the one who's going to be listening to it. You'll be outside running.
Richelle MeadFirst of all, Greece won't go down. We're talking about a country that is capable of making change. Europe will not allow the destabilization of the 27-country euro zone. But if there were no action, then markets would start becoming jittery about other countries - and not only Spain and Portugal, but other countries in the European Union.
George Papandreou