foreign quotes

Who can tell without instruction what is likely to be the effect of thenew loans of England toforeignnations? We press upon half-finished and half-civilized communities incalculable sums; we are to them what the London money-dealers are to students at Oxford and Cambridge.

-Walter Bagehot
  'Postulates of English Political Economy', in Economic Studies (1880).

I am not going to spend any time whatsoever attacking the Foreign Secretary.Quite honestly, I am beginning to feel extremely sorry for him. If we complain about the tune, there is no reason to attack the monkey when the organ grinder is present.

- Aneurin Bevan
  Expressing his wish to address Prime Minister Harold Macmillan rather than Selwyn Lloyd on the Suez crisis in the House of Commons, May.

If you carry this resolution, you will send a Foreign Secretarywhoever he may benaked into the conference chamber.You call that statesmanship. I call it an emotional spasm.

- Aneurin Bevan
  Labour Party conference speech against unilateral disarmament, Oct.

She has been beastly to the Bank of England, has demanded that the BBC'set its house in order'and tends to believe the worst of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She cannot see an institution without hitting it with her handbag.

- SirJulian Michael Gordon Critchley
  Profile of Margaret Thatcher in The Times, 21  Jun.

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.

- L(eslie) P(oles) Hartley
  The Go-Between, prologue.

I don't believe I'll ever get credit for anything I do in foreign affairs, no matter how successful it is, because I didn't go to Harvard.

- Lyndon B(aines) also called LBJ Johnson
To columnist Hugh Sidey. Quoted in  Alistair Cooke The Americans (1980).

All of life is a foreign country.

-Jack (John) Kerouac
  Letter, 24  Jun.

No foreign policy, no matter how ingenious, has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a fewand carried in the heart of none.

- HenryAlfred Kissinger
  Speech to International Platform  Association, 2  Aug.

Insurrectionby means of guerrilla bandsis the true method of warfare for all nations desirous of emancipating themselves from a foreign yoke.

- Giuseppe Mazzini
  General Instructions for the Members of Young Italy, section 4.

I believe that the BBC, in spite of the stupidity of its foreign propaganda and the unbearable voices of its announcers, is very truthful. It isgenerally regarded here as more reliable than the press.

- George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair Orwell
  In the Partisan Review,15  Apr. Reprinted in Collected Essays,  Journalism and Letters, vol.2.

If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreigntroopwaslanded inmycountry,Inever would lay down my armsnevernevernever!

-William, 1st Earl of Chatham known as  the Elder Pitt
  Speech to the House of Lords,18 Nov.

The government may tomorrow withdraw every one of their troopsfrom Ireland.Ireland will be defended by her armed sons from foreign invasion, and for that purpose the armed Catholics in the south will be only too glad to join arms with the armed Protestant Ulsterman. Is it too muchtohope that out of thissituation a result mayspring that will be good not merely for the Empire but for the future welfare and integrity of the Irish nation?

-John Edward Redmond
  Speech, House of Commons, 3 Aug.

He not only knew a lot about foreign affairs, he was a foreign affair.

-James B(arrett) Reston
  Of former Secretary of State HenryA Kissinger. Deadline.

I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again:Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.

- Franklin D(elano) Roosevelt
  Speech in Boston, 30 Oct.

And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace; But he rose upon their decks, and he cried: 'I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true; I have only done my dutyas a man is bound to do: With a joyful spirit I Sir Richard Grenville die!' And he fell upon their decks, and he died.

-Tennyson
  'The Revenge', stanza13, l.99^104.

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world.

- BookerTaliaferro Washington
  Farewell address to the union,17 Sep.

Johnny, keep it out of focus. I want to win the foreign picture award.

- Billy (Samuel) Wilder
  Remark to cameramanJohn Seitz during the making of Sunset Boulevard.

I don't object to foreigners speaking a foreign language; I just wish they'd all speak the same foreign language.

- Billy (Samuel) Wilder
  Avanti (with I A L Diamond).