#state

After the Second World War, San Francisco was the main point of re-entry for sailors returning from the Pacific. Out at sea, many of these sailors had picked up amatory habits that were frowned upon back on dry land. So these sailors stayed in San Francisco . . . ↗

— Jeffrey Eugenides

#san-francisco #united-states-navy #world-war-ii #world-war-ii

Our goal, simply stated, is to be the best. ↗

— James Harvey Robinson

#goal #our #simply #stated

It's not radical Islam that worries the US -- it's independence ↗

— Noam Chomsky

#independence #islam #united-states #us #state

Happiness is a state of activity. ↗

— Aristotle

#happiness #state

For if there were a list of cosmic things that unite us, reader and writer, visible as it scrolled up into the distance, like the introduction to some epic science-fiction film, then shining brightly on that list would be the fact that we exist in a financial universe that is subject to massive gravitational pulls from states. States tug at us. States bend us. And, tirelessly, states seek to determine our orbits. ↗

— Mohsin Hamid

#government #state #states #science

The national interest cannot be defined as a common interest of the industrial, commercial, and financial companies of a country, because there is no such common interest; nor can it be defined as the life, liberty, and well-being of the citizens, because they are continually being adjured to sacrifice their well-being, their liberty, and their lives to the national interest. In the end a study of modern history leads to the conclusion that the national interest of every State consists in its capacity to make war. ↗

— Simone Weil

#national-interest #war #life

They follow meaningless, boring rules and live meaningless, boring lives." Ahh," I say. "Except for you, of course." That's right." Because you eat butter straight from the pan." She arches her eyebrows, like Hey, I call it like I see it. Whatever," I say. "I'm not going to eat Snoopy just to make a statement. ↗

— Lauren Myracle

#snoopy #statement #humor

the fact that every people feel itself threatened by the others gives the state it's definite unifying powers; it depends upon the instinct of self-preservation of society itself; the latent external crisis enables it to get the upper hand in internal crises ↗

— Martin Buber

#politics #power #state #anarchy

Being a superpower is like being a Santa Claus that everyone hates. ↗

— Jon Stewart

#politics-of-the-united-states #funny

An old joke has an Oxford professor meeting an American former graduate student and asking him what he's working on these days. 'My thesis is on the survival of the class system in the United States.' 'Oh really, that's interesting: one didn't think there was a class system in the United States.' 'Nobody does. That's how it survives. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#humour #joke #united-states #united-states