Top 100 First National Quotes
#1. In 1856, shortly before his death, Lord Ellesmere gave the painting to the new National Portrait Gallery in London as its founding work. As the gallery's first acquisition, it has a certain sentimental prestige, but almost at once its authenticity was doubted.
Bill Bryson
#2. My goals for next year are to win a national title first and foremost.
Nerlens Noel
#3. Fraternity means that the father no longer sacrifices the sons; instead the brothers kill one another. Wars between nations have been replaced by civil war. The great settling of accounts, first under national 'pretexts,' led to a rapidly escalating world civil war.
Ernst Junger
#4. It was at the graduate school at Columbia University that I first met Wesley C. Mitchell, with whom I was associated for many years at the National Bureau of Economic Research and to whom I owe a great intellectual debt.
Simon Kuznets
#5. Presidents are always also storytellers, purveyors of useful national mythologies. And surprisingly enough, Richard Nixon, this awkward man who didn't even really like people, had not been so bad at this duty - at least in the first four years of his presidency.
Rick Perlstein
#6. The statesman will soon find himself thwarted in some way or other, will deduce from this opposition a menace first to his plans, then to national prestige, and finally to the existence of the state itself - and so, regarding his country as the party attacked, will engage in a war of defence.
B.H. Liddell Hart
#7. People just want to hear some common sense ... and I bring to bear the experience in local government and state government and national government - I was the first woman in history on the Senate Finance Committee - not to mention the diplomatic international experience.
Carol Moseley Braun
#8. A father of the church said that property was theft, many centuries before Proudhon was born. Bourdaloue reaffirmed it. Montesquieu was the inventor of national workshops and of the theory that the state owed every man a living. Nay, was not the church herself the first organized democracy?
James Russell Lowell
#9. During the first six years of my life, Hungary was one of the most important components of the Habsburg dynasty's vast Austro-Hungarian Empire, but after World War I it became an independent national entity.
Georg Solti
#10. Actually, I think all addiction starts with soda. Every junkie did soda first. But no one counts that. Maybe they should. The soda connection is clear. Why isn't a presidential commission looking into this? Or at least some guys from the National Carbonation Council.
Chris Rock
#11. And yet, if we don't, first and foremost, act responsibly with the national tax dollars that we have, we can't properly address those regional priorities that we would like to.
Melissa Bean
#12. As soon as the first piece of foliage came within blade's reach, my student started frantically swinging the machete like he was defending his virtue from a trove of drunken, handsy woodland elves. 'I feel like I'm in the movie Predator,' he said as he decapitated a flower.
Michael Gurnow
#13. The word which gives the key to the national vice is waste. And people who are wasteful are not wise, neither can they remain young and vigorous. In order to transmute energy to higher and more subtle levels one must first conserve it.
Henry Miller
#14. I asked the man on the phone from the National Endowment for the Arts what this fellowship entailed, and he said, 'Well, first there's $10,000.' I asked him, 'Can I pay it in installments?'
Johnny Gimble
#15. It is the press, above all, which wages a positively fanatical and slanderous struggle, tearing down everything which can be regarded as a support of national independence, cultural elevation, and the economic independence of the nation.
Adolf Hitler
#16. The first time I came to London on my own, I was 15. I was absolutely oblivious to so many things. I had no expectations, no fears. I just came to do a National Youth Theatre season one summer. It was just brilliant.
Gina McKee
#17. 1 month ago the American people stopped to remember the third anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war. We thought first and foremost of the selflessness, patriotism and heroism by our troops, our National Guard and Reserves.
Rosa DeLauro
#18. It was a constitutional convention for the female half of the country. After all, we had been excluded from the first one.
Gloria Steinem
#19. I am a very simple man. I am a man first, an artist second. My first obligation is to the welfare of my fellow man. I will endeavour to meet this obligation through music, since it transcends language, politics and national boundaries.
Pablo Casals
#20. More than anything else, a budget request is a statement of national priorities; a clear enumeration of what our country needs to grow its economy and remain in the future the first-rate power it is today.
Roy Blunt
#21. I believe with all my heart that our first priority must be world peace, and that use of force is always and only a last resort, when everything else has failed, and then only with regard to our national security.
Ronald Reagan
#22. President Obama's reckless defense cuts that are hanging over our cloud, hanging over the horizon could put almost 44,000 jobs at stake right here in Pennsylvania. we are not going to let that happen. You know why? Because No. 1, national defense is the first priority of the federal government.
Paul Ryan
#23. The chief fruit of the First World War was the Russian Revolution and the rise of Communism as a national power.
Whittaker Chambers
#24. I'm enthralled by the national yearning that the Russians had during the 50s and 60s. The whole century was pretty rough for them. They suffered genocide, war, poverty, and half the population was sent to labor camps. But they were determined to get into space first.
George Meyer
#25. When I first went to 'National Geographic,' I thought I was the least qualified person to step through the doors. But because of my parents and the culture of continual learning they imposed on us, I later came to believe I was the most qualified person who ever worked there.
Sam Abell
#26. First National Bank laid off 1,000 people; where do they go? There are no jobs for them. So we are having serious economic problems in this country. We are in a real economic crisis.
Richard M. Daley
#27. Although tyranny ... may successfully rule over foreign peoples, it can stay in power only if it destroys first of all the national institutions of its own people.
Hannah Arendt
#28. First, we must continually reaffirm the principle that the security of the United States is not, and should never be, a partisan matter. The United States can best defend its national security interests abroad by uniting behind a bipartisan security policy at home.
William Cohen
#29. Born in England during the First World War, of Belgian parents with partly German roots, I grew up in the cosmopolitan city of Antwerp, where I had the benefit of a classical education taught in the two national languages of Belgium: French and Dutch.
Christian De Duve
#30. Dr. Margaret Oda, a true trailblazer in education, served as Honolulu school district superintendent and was the driving force behind the middle-school concept and the first chairwoman of the Japanese American National Museum.
Colleen Hanabusa
#31. Our compulsive hunger always to know first, speak first and decide first has only been amplified by the fact that we can now all participate instantly in a virtual version of a national cocktail-party conversation on Twitter, Facebook and blogs.
John Podhoretz
#32. Nixon did not anticipate the extent to which Kissinger, whom he barely knew when he appointed him national-security adviser in 1969, would be envious and high-strung - a maintenance project of the first order.
Robert Dallek
#33. I think my first hit was probably '24 is a Rubberband Man,' which was my second album. My first project, it was very well received in the Southeast region, all throughout the South and parts of the Midwest. It was very well received, but I didn't get national exposure on my second album.
T.I.
#34. You know, there's a real irony in U.S. assistance programs. First of all, I think it's misnamed. We're not so much trying to help people as we're trying to help ourselves. So let's be clear about this. So these are - in my view, they're cold calculations of national security and not aid programs.
Richard Armitage
#35. I started at a 'learn to swim' scheme when I was about five-years-old. I did it to learn water safety, but it was fun and I loved the water. I went to a club, moved up through the ranks and got better and better before taking part in my first national championships.
Liam Tancock
#36. Our first and most pressing problem is how to do away with warfare as a method of solving conflicts between national groups within a society who have different views about how the society is to run.
Margaret Mead
#37. I'll just be the first to say that Ken [Watanabe] should be a national treasure in Japan, because he is an unbelievably talented actor. You couldn't find more of a gentleman. He's sweet, he's kind and he's extremely thoughtful in the work that he does.
Leonardo DiCaprio
#38. Why should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become involved in immense duplications of research, construction and expenditure?
John F. Kennedy
#39. To make a bestseller, there are more customers than just your customers: Selling to the end-user is just one piece of the puzzle. In my case, I needed to first sell myself to the publisher to get marketing support and national retail distribution.
Timothy Ferriss
#40. Right before I graduated from the national theatre school, I got the part of Roxie Hart in 'Chicago' in Copenhagen. That led to me playing it here in London. I was 26 when I came over for that. It was the first thing I did as a professional, and it is still the experience of my life.
Birgitte Hjort Sorensen
#41. When 'The Washington Post' ran the first national story about FBI profiling in 1984, no one outside of law enforcement recognized the term.
Ronald Kessler
#42. I spent my first twenty years in Morocco, where I coached the national team.
Just Fontaine
#43. My first jobs were all civil service. At 14, I worked for the Canadian National Railways. At 16, I worked for the Canadian Penitentiary Service.
Dan Aykroyd
#44. In the late Fifties and early Sixties, opposition to state terror and aggression and torture and so on was zero. That was a horrible time: the massive Kennedy terror operation against Cuba, the first attacks on Vietnam in 1962, the imposition of national security states in South America.
Noam Chomsky
#45. Being successful means good results for the national team at first in the regional competitions like the Asian Cup and keeping in mind to go for Gold at a World Cup in the future.
Berti Vogts
#46. A man's first bond is that which ties him into the national community.
Martin Heidegger
#47. I will be the first to admit that getting votes and getting an audience are two different things. For example, a politician really can't be elected if he's hated by half the people. A talk show host, however, can be an overwhelming national phenomenon while being hated by half the people.
Rush Limbaugh
#48. National security - the military is the first thing we should spend money on. You have to fully fund that first. And then you should be paying for everything else.
Marco Rubio
#49. In our national discourse and in pursuing our national agenda, we must never leave anyone behind. We must reach out to the many who may have been disaffected and left confused by political games, deceit and showmanship. The people first must transcend every level of society.
Najib Razak
#50. Joe Louis and I were the first modern national sports figures who were black ... But neither of us could do national advertising because the South wouldn't buy it. That was the social stigma we lived under.
Jesse Owens
#51. My teachers encouraged me to audition for some professional work during our summer vacation. I landed my first job. It was for the National Theatre Company's Mimika Pantomime troupe. I ended up touring with them for the next two years.
Didi Conn
#52. [I am] confident that Congress will pass the Kennedy-Hatch KidCare bill, a first step toward the single-payer socialized medicine system that the NEA [National Education Association] has endorsed for years.
Phyllis Schlafly
#53. When you're the most successful person in your family, in your neighborhood, and in your town, everybody thinks you're the First National Bank, and you have to figure out for yourself where those boundaries are.
Oprah Winfrey
#54. When I was a child, the FA Cup was one of the crown jewels of the sporting year, along with the Grand National, Wimbledon and The Open. But with every announcement it seems to lose another piece of its identity. First it was sponsors added to the name, followed by the semi-finals at Wembley.
Gary Neville
#55. Maybe we are all prospective migrants. The lines of national borders on maps are artificial constructs, as unnatural to us as they are to birds flying overhead. Our first impulse is to ignore them.
Mohsin Hamid
#56. Under Hitler it was the entrepreneurial and professional classes who were the first victims of Nazi boycotts and exclusion. Today it is Israel, the most powerful symbol of Jewish national resurgence in two millennia.
Jack Schwartz
#57. Bobby Orr was a star when they played the National Anthem in his first game.
Harry Sinden
#58. Probably the '86 nationals. That was my first real national title and first real statement I ever made in figure skating, and my life changed after I returned.
Debi Thomas
#59. We are seeing at the Republican National Committee a phenomenon that is worth noting this week; maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe Wednesday, we will have a million first time donors since the president took office.
Ed Gillespie
#60. To date, [Wynton] Marsalis has received a total of nine Grammy Awards; a Pulitzer Prize (the first ever awarded to a jazz musician) ... and twenty-nine honorary degrees, including Columbia, Brown, Princeton and Yale; the National Medal of Arts; and numerous awards from other countries.
Randy Sandke
#61. Actions, such as the designation of National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, spring from First Lady Michelle Obama's leadership of efforts to end childhood obesity within this generation.
Richard Carmona
#62. I convened the first-ever national training conference for prosecutors on how to promote and deal with hate crime issues in terms of prosecutions and also protocol for defeating the gay panic defense.
Kamala Harris
#63. The first time I managed to pick up a basketball I knew I was destined to lead the UK to another National championship ... Even now, so many years later, I still believe Kentucky will go undefeated in March & win everything.
Hunter S. Thompson
#64. It is time to understand the environment for what it is: the national security issue of the early twenty-first century.
Robert D. Kaplan
#65. And people are so het up about the fact I'm in the theatre - it's like, 'Ooh these telly names, can they be any good?' I came out of RADA and my first job was at the National Theatre, but everyone wonders if I can cope. It makes me laugh.
Joanna Page
#66. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the first use of alcohol typically begins at age 12.
Xavier Becerra
#67. 2004 was a great year for Boston! The Patriots won the Super Bowl! Boston hosted its first national political convention! And - the Red Sox won the World Series!
Thomas Menino
#68. My first book was called 'Buried Dreams,' about a serial-killer, which was probably about ten years ahead of the serial-killer curve. It was a national bestseller, but it was three years of living in the sewer of this guy's mind.
Tim Cahill
#70. From the age of 6, when I won my first race in skiing, I was on the national ski teams, really until Olympics in '72, so I always had a lot of discipline and commitment to achieve as much as I could in good way. Competitiveness doesn't stop when you stop skiing.
Ivana Trump
#71. When we think of the major threats to our national security, the first to come to mind are nuclear proliferation, rogue states and global terrorism. But another kind of threat lurks beyond our shores, one from nature, not humans - an avian flu pandemic.
Barack Obama
#72. Television has given Pakistan a truly open national forum for the first time in its history. Ideas are debated, leaders are assessed and criticised, and a nation of 170 million people is finally discovering, together, what it thinks.
Mohsin Hamid
#73. It seems people don't read or listen. Our scholars and our media have been very outspoken. We were the first country in the world to hold a national public awareness campaign against extremism and terrorism. Why would we not want to fight an ideology whose objective is to kill us?
Adel Al-Jubeir
#74. I was the first woman to speak ever at the National Press Club, and they gave me a necktie.
Gloria Steinem
#75. ID can be hijacked, and cards can be faked. All of the 9/11 terrorists had fake IDs, yet they still got on the planes. If the British national ID card can't be faked, it will be the first on the planet.
Bruce Schneier
#77. Some anthems are great for sports. You've got the Russian national anthem ... 'O Canada,' how wonderful is that for hockey ... but I chose the Italian national song because at my first World Cup, I saw the Italians play four times, and they won all four times - they won the championship.
George Vecsey
#78. The most scared I'd ever been was the first time I sang at a rugby match, Australia versus New Zealand, in front of one hundred thousand people. I had a panic attack the night before because people have been booed off and never worked again ... just singing one song, the national anthem.
Hugh Jackman
#79. I never achieved my first goal in the National Actors Theatre, which is to have a permanent Acting Company.
Tony Randall
#80. My national identity is first American. My religious identity is first Muslim.
Dalia Mogahed
#81. As soon as I got out of jail, as soon as my trial was over, first of all, during the time I was in jail, there was an organization called the National United Committee to Free Angela Davis, and I insisted that it be called National United Committee to Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners.
Angela Davis
#82. The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but ... to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.
Joseph Story
#83. If there is one thing we admire about National Socialism it's the fact that it has succeeded, for the first time in German politics, in the complete mobilisation of human stupidity."30
Volker Ullrich
#84. I am honored to have served as our great nation's first National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. I will continue to serve as Ambassador Emeritus. And I will make good on my Ambassadorial promise to my wife to stop playing the 'Fanfare' every time I walk into or out of a room.
Jon Scieszka
#85. Some kind of affirmative action is important in a democracy and for economic competitiveness and national security. The Army was the first to realize that you had to have desegregation of a military to have it working properly.
Andrew Young
#86. I said after 2006 that Republicans didn't just lose our majority, we lost our way. I mean, our party walked away from the principles that men in our national governing majority first in 1980 and again in 1994, and the American people walked away from us.
Mike Pence
#88. The world political system is till based on the concept of the national sovereign state. For the first time therefore, in three hundred years economy and sovereignty are becoming divorced from each other.
Peter Drucker
#89. First, we must stop issuing drivers' licenses to people in our country illegally. Providing them with forms of government identification makes a mockery of our laws and undermines national security efforts.
Bobby Jindal
#90. Though President Grover Cleveland declared Labor Day a national holiday in 1894, the occasion was first observed on Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City.
Brendan I. Koerner
#91. The National Guard has served America as both a wartime force and the first military responders in times of domestic crisis. Hundreds of times each year, the nation's governors call upon their Guard troops to respond to fires, floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters.
Russel Honore
#92. For a nation to be truly great, she must first identify her national values, enumerate her virtues and formulate her value system. But the most tasking of all these is to develop a culture in her people, that will best represent the proclaimed value systems of the nation.
Sunday Adelaja
#93. Soon, a national and international feminist movement was challenging the idea that what happened to men was political but what happened to women was cultural; that the first could be changed but the second could not. - Gloria Steinem
Jay Allison
#94. That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black, and a woman proves, I would think, that our society is not yet either just or free.
Shirley Chisholm
#95. I had that perfect deadpan ... for these commercials. Within the first eight months I had eight national TV commercials. I'm a true Hollywood success story - knew no one, had no connections.
Leslie Jordan
#96. Greece is internationally famous for three reasons. First it has more islands than people. Second, it used to be a part of Turkey. Third, its national hero, Alexander the Great, was a Yugoslavian.
Fatima Bhutto
#97. We must strive to form a comprehensive sublime nationalism whose first principal is national geographic unity and must strengthen this unity with deeds not with words.
Ameen Rihani
#98. National security is the first duty of government but we are also committed to reversing the substantial erosion of civil liberties.
Theresa May
#99. National armies fight nations, royal armies fight their like, the first obey a mob, always demented and the second a king, generally sane.
J. F. C. Fuller
#100. May the arm of the first member of Congress, who proposes a national religion, drop powerless from his shoulder; his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth and all the people say amen.
Anne Royall
