State Interests Quotes

A state worthy of the name has no friends—only interests. [This is a generalized expression of British Prime Minister John Henry Temple's statement a century earlier.

States are supposed to have interests but no principles. I have principles but no interests.

Before God and his Holy Gospels I swear and promise on becoming a Bishop, fidelity to the Italian State. I swear and promise to respect and make respected by my clergy the King and the Government established according to the constitutional laws of the State. I swear and promise moreover that I shall not participate in any agreement or any counsel that can damage the Italian State and the public order and I shall not allow to my clergy such participation. I shall concern myself with the well-being and interests of the Italian State and endeavour to avert any danger that can possibly menace it.

We in the United States are very often - since we are a democracy and we have national interests, we've often made the mistake that a democracy has to adopt America's interests, and that is a contradiction because a democracy basically is people deciding what their interests are.

I don't have any problem with the United States acting on behalf of its own interests. That's what big powers do; that's what all countries do. I would just like to see us analyze in a serious way what really is in our interest. Sometimes we intervene in foreign countries in ways that seem successful at first. In the end, however, we wind up with unpredicted consequences that make us regret those operations.

Milosevic did not die in The Hague - he was killed in The Hague. But, he had managed to defend the national and state interests of Serbia and the Serb people, and everybody should be grateful to him for that.

Freedom of the news media must be subordinated to the overriding needs of Singapore, and to the primacy of purpose of an elected government.

Democratically elected leaders, forced to accommodate the real forces that shape their nation-state’s future—capital and the economic and military interests of more-powerful states—do so only to face the ire of their own citizens, who see themselves (perhaps rightly) as the losers of these compromises.]

You always have more than one goal in foreign policy.

Self-interest is not only a legitimate but a fundamental cause for national policy—one which needs no cloak of hypocrisy.

All States do not have the same interests, but are there any interests which cannot be infinitely better reconciled before than after a war?

I believe a relationship with a country is simply bound to the interests of two countries and not by personal issues.

Religious freedom is too sacred a right to be restricted or prohibited in any degree without convincing proof that a legitimate interest of the state is in grave danger.

According to Marx, socialism is the first stage of communism and it covers a very long historical period in which we must practise the principle "to each according to his work" and combine the interests of the state, the collective and the individual, for only thus can we arouse people's enthusiasm for labour and develop socialist production.

There are many times where national interest is more important than the law.

Geopolitical interests are behind the so-called war on drugs and terrorism.

The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.

… all governments must frequently infringe the rules of justice to support themselves; that truth must give way to dissimulation, honesty to convenience, and humanity itself to the reigning interest. The whole of this mystery of iniquity is called the reason of state. It is a reason which I own I cannot penetrate.

Truth telling is not compatible with the defence of the realm.

Governments can expect to act multilaterally or unilaterally—but not have it both ways at the same time.

As China is about adaptation, not transformation, it is unlikely to change the world dramatically should it ever assume the global driver's seat. But this does not mean that China won't exploit that world for its own purposes.

I wasn't there for one constituent; I was there for a major economic interest of my state.

It is not national interests we are upholding — we claim that the interests of socialism, the interests of world socialism, rank higher than national interests, higher than the interests of the state. We are defenders of the socialist fatherland.

The instant the Government was organized, at the very first Congress, the Northern States evinced a general desire and purpose to use it for their own benefit, and to pervert its powers for sectional advantage, and they have steadily pursued that policy to this day.

What is the inducement of these great States to put down the Bank of the United States? Their avarice combined with their love of domination …. The great commercial States are to monopolize the benefits which are to arise from the deposits of your public money.