James Connolly Quotes

A nation’s literature is the expression of a nation's mind in writing and the concentration of intellect for the purpose of spreading itself abroad and multiplying its energy

England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare,but the Bible made England.

English culture is highly literary-based.

Poetic talent doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.

I put it to you that there are no British poets, there are no British novelists. I have heard myself described as one, but I think really I'm an English novelist; there are Scottish poets and Scottish novelists.

If a nation's literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays.

Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy the Church. America Hollywood.

In these confused times, the role of classical music is at the very core of the struggle to reassert cultural and ethical values that have always characterized our country and for which we have traditionally been honored and respected outside our shores.

In general it can be said that a nation's art is greatest when it most reflects the character of its people.

A great silence has fallen upon the real soul of this nation.

A country can be judged by the quality of its proverbs.

Poems, novels - these things belong to the nation, to the culture, and the people.

What a country chooses to save is what a country chooses to say about itself.

The trees encountered on a country stroll Reveal a lot about that country's soul ... A culture is no better than its woods.

To be an Irish poet after that 19th century in which there was such a struggle toward the light, I think still will always be in the hearts of the writers of my generation and the generations before and hopefully the generations after.

There is a bit of Hans Christian Andersen in every Dane.

Culture is the name for what people are interested in, their thoughts, their models, the books they read and the speeches they hear, their table-talk, gossip, controversies, historical sense and scientific training, the values they appreciate, the quality of life they admire. All communities have a culture. It is the climate of their civilization.

A nation's greatness is measured not just by its gross national product or military power, but by the strength of its devotion to the principles and values that bind its people and define their character.

A nation's institutions and beliefs are determined by it's character.

We have lost the good old British spirit. Instead we have American journalism and black-shirted buffoons making a cheap imitation of ice-cream sellers.

Cultural America is under siege. And as the Soviet experience illustrates, ideology is a weak glue to hold together people otherwise lacking racial, ethnic, and cultural sources of community.

Perhaps no custom reveals our character as a Nation so clearly as our celebration of Thanksgiving Day. Rooted deeply in our Judeo-Christian heritage, the practice of offering thanksgiving underscores our unshakable belief in God as the foundation of our Nation and our firm reliance upon Him from Whom all blessings flow.

A book is judged, not by its reference to life, but by its reference to other books.

What do you expect from a culture and a nation that exerted more of its national will fighting against Disney World and Big Macs than the Nazis?

One of the reasons the English got through all their falls and the loss of their empire, all their disasters, their strikes, their difficulties, their wars through the years was they had Shakespeare to fall back on. And they speak well in England.