My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too. And whether our forebears were strangers who crossed the Atlantic, or the Pacific, or the Rio Grande, we are here only because this country welcomed them in, and taught them that to be an American is about something more than what we look like, or what our last names are, or how we worship. What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to an ideal -– that all of us are created equal, and all of us have the chance to make of our lives what we will. That's the country our parents and grandparents and generations before them built for us. That's the tradition we must uphold. That's the legacy we must leave for those who are yet to come.
Barack ObamaRelated topics
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Tell me some of your chief difficulties that prevent you and your countrymen from openly following Christ, and when I write to you I shall do my best to explain how I and many who agree with me have met them and solved them... From my point of view, India, at least the best part of it, is already converted to Christianity. You want no persuasion to become a follower of Christ. Then make up your mind to act for yourselves. Unite your flock, and put up a few folds to hold them together. The bridge has been built by you for those who came before you. Step boldly forward, it will not break under you, and you will find many friends to welcome you on the other shore, and among them none more delighted that you old friend and fellow labourer.
Max Müller
The implicit, or even explicit, offer made by authoritarians is stability in exchange for liberty. High oil prices allowed Putin to keep this bargain for a while, aided by an international community that lost interest in promoting liberty as soon as the Berlin Wall fell. Putin was welcomed by the G7 as an equal while destroying democracy and civil society at home. Imagine how difficult it was for us in Russia to attack Putin's regime as undemocratic while he was being embraced by the leaders of the free world. Even Putin's invasion of neighboring Georgia in August 2008 resulted in no censure or sanction. He was rewarded by Obama and Hillary Clinton's reset a few months later, confirming to him that a move into Ukraine would also go unchallenged.
Garry Kasparov
Sir, there were other days, when England was the hope of freedom. Wherever in the world a high aspiration was entertained, or a noble blow was struck, it was to England that the eyes of the oppressed were always turned-to this favourite, this darling home of so much privilege and so much happiness, where the people that had built up a noble edifice for themselves would, it was well known, be ready to do what in them lay to secure the benefit of the same inestimable boon for others. You talk to me of the established tradition and policy in regard to Turkey. I appeal to an established tradition, older, wider, nobler far-a tradition not which disregards British interests, but which teaches you to seek the promotion of those interests in obeying the dictates of honour and of justice.
William Ewart Gladstone
The friends of genuine, and I will add of rational Christianity, have not, however, on the whole, much reason to regret that their enemies have not made these distinctions; since by this means, we have been taught to make them ourselves; so that Christianity is perhaps as much indebted to its enemies, as to its friends, for this important service. In their indiscriminate attacks, whatever has been found to be untenable has been gradually abandoned, and I hope the attack will be continued till nothing of the wretched outworks be left; and then, I doubt not, a safe and impregnable fortress, will be sound in the center, a fortress built upon a rock, against which the gates of death will not prevail.
Joseph Priestley
We must stand united in our support of other young democracies, from the people of Lebanon struggling to maintain their hard-won independence, to the people of the Palestinian Territories, who deserve a free and peaceful state of their own. We must stand united in our support of the people of Georgia. The United Nations Charter sets forth the equal rights of nations large and small. Russia's invasion of Georgia was a violation of those words. Young democracies around the world are watching to see how we respond to this test. The United States has worked with allies in multilateral institutions like the European Union and NATO to uphold Georgia's territorial integrity and provide humanitarian relief. And our nations will continue to support Georgia's democracy.
George W. Bush