#Europe Quotes

“An iron curtain has descended over Europe.”

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”

“If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea.”

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Atlantic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind the line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe... All these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

“Europe extends to the Alleghenies; America lies beyond.”

“We must be united, we must be undaunted, we must be inflexible. Our qualities and deeds must burn and glow through the gloom oEurope until they become the veritable beacon oits salvation.”

“We have listened too long to the courtly Muses of Europe.”

“We see nothing but good and hope in a richer, freer, more contented European commonalty. But we have our own dreams and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not comprised. We are interested and associated, but not absorbed.”

“Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free, and life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fall, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age... Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'”

“We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed, to forget the feuds of a thousand years and work for the larger harmonies on which the future depends.”

“If Europe were once united in the sharing of its common inheritance there would be no limit to the happiness, the prosperity, and the glory which its three or four million people would enjoy.”

“In Europe public men do resign. But here it's a lost art. You have to impeach 'em.”

“Baldwin thought Europe was a bore, and Chamberlain thought it was only a greater Birmingham.”

“We must build a kind of United States of Europe.”

“We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed to forget the feuds of a thousand years.”

“Even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of man. Science has liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example has kindled feelings of right in the people. An insurrection has consequently begun of science talents and courage against rank and birth, which have fallen into contempt. It has failed in its first effort, because the mobs of the cities, the instrument used for its accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty and vice, could not be restrained to rational action. But the world will soon recover from the panic of this first catastrophe.”

“A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood... A day will come when we shall see... the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas.”

“The colleges of Edinburgh and Geneva as seminaries of science, are considered as the two eyes of Europe. While Great Britain and America give the preference to the former, all other countries give it to the latter.”

“There is not a single crowned head in Europe whose talents or merit would entitle him to be elected a vestryman by the people of any parish in America.”

“When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.”

“My revenge is fraternity! No more frontiers! The Rhine for everyone! Let us be the same Republic, let us be the United States of Europe, let us be the continental federation, let us be European liberty, let us be universal peace!”

“A war between Europeans is a civil war.”

“Every step which the intelligence of Europe has taken has been in spite of the clerical party.”

“Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe.”

“To constrain the brute force of the people, the European governments deem it necessary to keep them down by hard labor, poverty and ignorance, and to take from them, as from bees, so much of their earnings, as that unremitting labor shall be necessary to obtain a sufficient surplus to sustain a scanty and miserable life.”

“[I]t seems that the Cannibals of Europe are going to eat one another again. A war between Russia and Turkey is like the battle of the kite and snake; whichever destroys the other, leaves a destroyer the less for the world.”

“Paris is the fountain-head of European civilisation, as Gomukhi is of the Ganga.”

“In Europe the object is to make the most of their land, labour being abundant: here it is to make the most of our labour, land being abundant.”

“With all the defects in our Constitution, whether general or particular, the comparison of our government with those of Europe, is like a comparison of Heaven with Hell. England, like the earth, may be allowed to take the intermediate station.”

“America has never quite forgiven Europe for having been discovered somewhat earlier in history than itself.”

“Of all the peoples of Europe, Spaniards disgust me the least.”

“Europe thus divided into nationalities freely formed and free internally, peace between States would have become easier: the United States of Europe would become a possibility.”

“I want the whole of Europe to have one currency; it will make trading much easier.”

“A man accustomed to American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe, but I think he would gradually waste away, and eventually die.”

“A great European federative system alone can be favourable to the development of civilisation.”

“Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.”

“In my lifetime all our problems have come from mainland Europe and all the solutions have come from the English-speaking nations across the world.”

“Our first duty to liberty is to keep our own. But it is also our duty - as Europeans - to keep alive in the Eastern as well as the Western half of our continent those ideas of human dignity which Europe gave to the world. Let us therefore resolve to keep the lamps of freedom burning bright so that all who look to the West from the shadows of the East need not doubt that we remain true to those human and spiritual values that lie at the heart of European civilization.”

“As an artist one has no home in Europe except in Paris.”

“They are all a rotten lot. Schmidt and the Americans and we are the only people who would do any standing up and fighting if necessary.”

“(I)t is highly questionable whether when 'Europe speaks with one voice', as we are so often told it is doing, anyone is really listening. Europe's reputation as a serious player in international affairs is unenviable. It is a feeble giant who desperate attempts to be taken seriously are largely risible. It has a weak currency and a sluggish inflexible economy, still much reliant on hidden protectionism. It has a shrinking, ageing, population and, with the exception of Britain, rather unimpressive armed forces and, not excepting Britain, muddled diplomacy.”

“When will Labour learn that you cannot build Jerusalem in Brussels.”

“Europe will never be like America. Europe is a product of history. America is a product of philosophy.”

“During my lifetime most of the problems the world has faced have come, in one fashion or another, from mainland Europe and the solution from outside it.”

“My first guiding principle is this: willing and active co-operation between independent sovereign states. Europe will be stronger precisely because it has France as France, Spain as Spain, Britain as Britain, each with its own customs, traditions and identity. It would be folly to try to fit them into some sort of identikit European personality.”

“Europe is... a monument to the vanity of individuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure.”

“If I were a German today, I would be proud, proud but also worried. I would be proud of the magnificent achievement of rebuilding my country, entrenching democracy and assuming the undoubtedly preponderant position in Europe. But a united Germany can't and won't subordinate its national interests in economic or in foreign policy to those of the Community indefinitely. Germany's new pre-eminence is a fact - and its power is a problem - as much for Germans as for the rest of Europe.”

“The United States is contributing massively to the defence of Europe and we should be very grateful.”

“(A unified) 'Europe' is the result of plans. It is, in fact, a classic utopian project, a monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure: only the scale of the final damage done is in doubt.”

“If the Europeans truly wish to improve their NATO contribution they can show it simply enough. They can establish professional armed forces, like those of the UK. And they can acquire more advanced technology. Indeed, unless that happens soon the gulf between the European and US capabilities will yawn so wide that it will not be possible to share the same battlefield. Alas, I do not think that sharing battlefields with our American friends - but rather disputing global primacy with them - is what European defence plans are truly about.”