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Imperialism Quotes

Browse 523 quotes about Imperialism.

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Imperialism Quotes

“Monopolies, oligarchy, the striving for domination and not for freedom, the exploitation of an increasing number of small or weak nations by a handful of the richest or most powerful nations -- all these have given birth to those distinctive characteristics of imperialism which compel us to define it as parasitic or decaying capitalism.”

GivenNationsPowerfulNumbersBirthCapitalismWeakStriveCharacteristicsMost PowerfulExploitationImperialismDominationMonopolyHandfulDistinctiveOligarchy
Author:Vladimir Lenin
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“Vast quantities of U.S. bombers, tanks and guns have been sent against Ho Chi Minh and his freedom-fighters; and now we are told that soon it will be 'advisable' to send America GI's into Indo-China in order that the tin, rubber and tungsten of Southeast Asia be kept by the "free world"-meaning white Imperialism.”

WorldHas BeensAmericaOrderWhiteGunChinaFighterQuantityAsiaImperialismTanksRubberTinBombersFree WorldFreedom FighterAdvisableSoutheast AsiaGis
Author:Paul Robeson
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“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”

MenGovernmentIndependenceTyrannyConsentEvidentDeclarationSovereigntyImperialismForms Of GovernmentDeclaration Of IndependenceLimited GovernmentSelf-governmentBedrockInalienable RightsUs ConstitutionJuly 4th 1776SecessionIndependence And FreedomUnalienable RightsLiberty And EqualityEquality Of ManLife Liberty And The Pursuit Of HappinessConsent Of The GovernedAmerican ImperialismPower GovernmentOppressive GovernmentsPopular SovereigntyThreats To Liberty
Author:Walter E. Williams
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“Mead's anthropology had many other red, white and blue- blooded virtues. One was the common anthropological conceit, out of which she made a career, to the effect that the ultimate value of studying other cultures was the use we could make of them to reconstruct our own - a heady kind of intellectual imperialism, as if the final meaning of others' lives was their significance for us.”

IfsKindMadeUseValuesCultureWhiteCommonCareersVirtueStudyEffectsIntellectualRedUltimateBlueFinalsSignificanceImperialismConceitAnthropologyOther CulturesMeadRed White And Blue
Author:Margaret Mead
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“Amid the welter of vague political abstractions ... where meanings shift so quickly and so subtly, not only following changes of thought, but often manipulated artificially by political practitioners so as to obscure, expand, or distort ... a certain broad consistency in its relations to other kindred terms is the nearest approach to definition which such a term as Imperialism admits. Nationalism, internationalism, colonialism, its three closest congeners, are equally elusive, equally shifty, and the changeful overlapping of all four demands the closest vigilance.”

PoliticalCertainThreeTermFourDemandApproachRelationDefinitionsFollowingNationalismBroadsColonialismClosestConsistencyVagueObscureImperialismAbstractionElusiveVigilanceKindredOverlappingInternationalism
Author:J. Allan Hobson
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“What sets imperialism of the capitalist sort apart from other conceptions of empire is that it is the capitalist logic that typically dominates, though ... there are times in which the territorial logic comes to the fore. But this then poses a crucial question: how can the territorial logics of power, which tend to be awkwardly fixed in space, respond to the open spatial dynamics of endless capital accumulation? And what does endless capital accumulation imply for the territorial logics of power?”

DoeSpaceLogicEndlessFixedEmpiresConceptionCrucialCapitalistImperialismAccumulationDynamicsTerritorialSpatial
Book:The New Imperialism
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“Inflationism, however, is not an isolated phenomenon. It is only one piece in the total framework of politico-economic and socio-philosophical ideas of our time. Just as the sound money policy of gold standard advocates went hand in hand with liberalism, free trade, capitalism and peace, so is inflationism part and parcel of imperialism, militarism, protectionism, statism and socialism.”

IdeasHandsSoundPiecesEconomicPolicyStandardsCapitalismGoldPhilosophicalTradeInvestingSocialismOur TimeLiberalismPhenomenonIsolatedImperialismFrameworkHand In HandFree TradeOne PieceMilitarismParcelGold StandardProtectionism
Book:On the Manipulation of Money and Credit
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“People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our principle men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capitalism to govern the world. By dividing the people we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd.”

PeopleMenWorldWellsHomeFightingEnergyCommonKnownLeaderPrinciplesTeacherCapitalismImportanceEngagedWell KnownImperialismQuarrelsHerdsDividingFederal Reserve
Author:J. P. Morgan
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“Even today to be civilised is held to be synonymous with being westernised. Advanced countries devote large resources to formulating and spreading ideas and doctrines and they tend to impose on the developing nations their own norms and methods. The pattern of the classical acquisitive society with its deliberate multiplication of wants not only is unsuited to conditions in our countries but is positively harmful.”

WantIdeasCountryTodayNationsConditionsResourcesMethodPatternsDoctrineOur CountryDevelopingNormImperialismDeliberatePositivelyCivilisedMultiplication
Book:Selected Speeches of Indira Gandhi: The years of challenge, January 1966-August 1969
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“if we continue with what is surely our greatest Western temptation, and think that in some way history owes us a solution, that we can, by pursuing our own most parochial self-interest, achieve in some miraculous way a consummation of world order, then we are heading not simply towards great disappointments, but towards disaster and tragedy as well.”

IfsThinkingWorldWayWellsSelfOrderInterestAchieveSolutionsTragedyWesternDisappointmentDisasterTemptationImperialismMiraculousSelf InterestHeadingsWorld Order
Author:Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth
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“With our mad lust for Uniformity and a Higher Standard of Living and Expanding Markets, we go to a country like Afghanistan and cruelly try to jerk her forward two thousand years in two decades, giving no thought to the profound shock this must be to her national psychology.”

GivingTryingYearsTwoCountryPsychologyHigherThousandStandardsMadProfoundDecadesLustShockAfghanistanThousand YearsAsiaImperialismExpandingJerkStandards Of LivingUniformityHigher Standards
Book:Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle
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“The more I see of life in these 'undeveloped countries' and of the methods adopted to 'improve' them, the more depressed I become. It seems criminal that the backwardness of a country like Afghanistan should be used as an excuse for America and Russia to have a tug-of-war for possession.”

ShouldWarCountrySeemsAmericaUsedMethodExcusePossessionCriminalsRussiaAfghanistanAsiaImperialismAdoptedTug Of War
Book:Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle
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“Formal education in British India was remarkable for its lack of connection with its Indian environment. Like the African persuaded to cover his nakedness with a Mother Hubbard, we wore mental Mother Hubbards, and they were often a sad fit. Our textbooks had been compiled by Englishmen for English children, of whom there were none in my school and few in any school in India.”

ChildrenSchoolMotherEnvironmentFitConnectionsIndiaBritishIndianRemarkableFormalImperialismEnglishmenTextbooksFormal Education
Book:From fear set free
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“The religions whose theology is least preoccupied with events in time and most concerned with eternity, have been consistently less violent and more humane in political practice. Unlike early Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism (all obsessed with time) Hinduism and Buddhism have never been persecuting faiths, have preached almost no holy wars and have refrained from that proselytizing religious imperialism which has gone hand in hand with political and economic oppression of colored people.”

PeopleHas BeensWarHandsPoliticalReligiousChristianityPracticeGoneEconomicEventsBuddhismHolyConcernedEternityViolentTheologyOppressionObsessedHinduismConsistentlyImperialismJudaismHumaneHand In HandHoly WarProselytizingHinduism And Buddhism
Author:Aldous Huxley
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“America ... holds up its way of life as the ideal for every nation, and seeks to impose its own standards of living - which many people think ridiculously and unwholesomely high - on others, partly of course in the search for markets. If it were openly stated that it was just a search for markets, that would be one thing, but it is not; by a tremendous propaganda campaign this materialistic conception is held up as an ideal, as somehow part of liberty, and above all, as a form of happiness.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWayWould BeAmericaFormCoursesNationsLibertyUnited StatesOne ThingStandardsIdealsCampaignsPropagandaConceptionImperialismGlobalizationMaterialisticStandards Of Living
Author:Ann Bridge
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“The fortunes of the African revolution are closely linked with the world-wide struggle against imperialism. It does not matter where the battle erupts, be it in Africa, Asia or Latin America, the master-mind and master-hand at work are the same. The oppressed and exploited people are striving for their freedom against exploitation and suppression. Ghana must not, Ghana cannot be neutral in the struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor.”

PeopleWorldMindDoeMatterHandsAmericaStruggleMastersRevolutionBattleFortuneStriveWideLatinExploitationOppressedAsiaLinkedImperialismLatin AmericaOppressorsSuppressionGhana
Author:Kwame Nkrumah
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“...As the disparity between the rich and the poor grows, the fight to corner resources is intensifying. To push through their "sweetheart deals," to corporatize the crops we grow, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the dreams we dream, corporate globalization needs an international confederation of loyal, corrupt, authoritarian governments in poorer countries to push through unpopular reforms and quell the mutinies. Corporate Globalization-or shall we call it by its name?-Imperialism-needs a press that pretends to be free. It needs courts that pretend to dispense justice.”

NeedsCountryDreamGovernmentFightingNamesGrowsWaterJusticePoorDealsRichAirDrinkResourcesCourtPressesInternationalCornersBreatheReformCorporateLoyalImperialismGlobalizationCropsSweetheartDisparityMutinyConfederationAuthoritarian Government
Author:Arundhati Roy
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“I did not know much history when I became a bombardier in the U.S. Air Force in World War II. Only after the War did I see that we, like the Nazis, had committed atrocities... Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, my own bombing missions. And when I studied history after the War, I learned from reading on my own, not from my university classes, about the history of U.S. expansion and imperialism.”

KnowsWorldWarReadingForceMy OwnClassAirUniversityCommittedMissionsWar Of The WorldsWorld War IiWorld War IExpansionNaziImperialismBombingAtrocitiesAir ForceHiroshimaDresden
Author:Howard Zinn
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“The Anglo-Saxon hive have extirpated Paganism from the greater part of the North American continent; but with it they have likewise extirpated the greater portion of the Red race. Civilization is gradually sweeping from the earth the lingering vestiges of Paganism, and at the same time the shrinking forms of its unhappy worshippers.”

EarthFormRaceGreaterCivilizationRedUnhappyGenocidePortionsContinentsImperialismPaganismSweepingShrinkingLingeringHivesWorshippersAnglo Saxon
Book:Herman Melville: Typee, Omoo, Mardi
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“The Russians are going to be expansionist whether we [USA] provoke them to it or not. Russians keep saying that we're trying to encircle them. In what sense does the independence of Kosovo, a land-locked province, former Yugoslavia, with no common border with Russia, threaten Russia with encirclement? This is insulting. In what sense does the independence of Georgia constitute an encirclement? What we are facing, and we may as well give it its right name, is what I called it earlier, a chauvinistic, theocratic in part, xenophobic Russian imperialism.”

GivingTryingWellsMayDoeNamesCommonLandIndependenceRussiaFormerBordersUsaLockedProvokingImperialismInsultingGeorgiaProvincesKosovoYugoslavia
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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