France

"Tous les anciens peuples de la Gaule réunis en un seul peuple s’embrassent au nom des mêmes aïeux; et, comme ils ont une origine commune, ils vivront sous les mêmes lois et partageront les mêmes destinées."

"The creation of Modern France through expansion goes back to the establishment of a small kingdom in the area around Paris in the late tenth century and was not completed until the incorporation of Nice and Savoy in 1860. The existing "hexagon" was the result of a long series of wars and conquests involving the triumph of French language and culture over what once were autonomous and culturally distinctive communities. The assimilation of Gascons, Savoyards, Occitans, Basques, and others helped to sustain the myth that French overseas expansionism in the nineteenth century, especially to North and West Africa, was a continuation of the same assimilationist project."

"Une nation de singes à larynx de perroquets."

"Toute ma vie, je me suis fait une certaine idée de la France."

"I hate the French because they are all slaves and wear wooden shoes."

"Gay, sprightly, land of mirth and social ease Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please."

"France has no friends, only interests."

"And threatning France, placd like a painted Jove, Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand."

"France, famed in all great arts, in none supreme."

"France had been the cradle of anarchism, fathered for a long time by some of her most brilliant sons, of whom Proudhon was the greatest."

"La France a perdu une bataille, mais la France na pas perdu la guerre."

"First of all, lets dispense with this absurd stereotype that the French are rude. The French are not rude. They just happen to hate you. But that is no reason to have bypass this beautiful country, whose master chefs have a well-deserved worldwide reputation for trying to trick people into eating snails. Nobody is sure how this got started. Probably a couple of French master chefs were standing around one day, and they found a snail, and one of them said: "I bet that if we called this something like escargot, tourists would eat it." Then they had a hearty laugh, because "escargot" is the French word for "fat crawling bag of phlegm."