Norway

Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway (Norwegian: Kongeriket Norge), is a country and constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. It is bordered by Sweden, Finland, and Russia. The distance between the northern and southern parts of Norway is considerable compared to east-west distances. The country's extensive coastline along the North Atlantic Ocean is home to its famous fjords.

Quotes[edit]

[I]f you want to live like a Norwegian, buy a plane ticket.
- Jim Geraghty, "Ten Reasons We Can’t, and Shouldn’t, Be Nordic" (12 March 2018), National Review

We talk about the people who came to Russia with an intention either to work or to visit relatives. They had not declared that their real purpose of the visit was to flee to Norway. This means that they had deliberately provided false information about the purpose of their visit to Russia. This is why we do not want to take these people back.
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on deported refugees from Norway travelling to Russia, quoted on The Nordic Page, "Russia Will Not Accept Deported Refugees from Norway", January 26, 2016.

Norway would have been better off inside the EU
- The Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Erna Solberg, would have liked Norway to have full membership, quoted on The Global and Mail, "Norway’s deal with EU could be a model for Britain", March 17, 2016.

[...] and you, my compatriots in Norway, have no grounds for complaining that we have forgotten the dear, familiar and specific character with which God has endowed our land and our nation. That is so firmly entrenched in our being that it finds expression, whether we like it or not. Do not, therefore, insult us further with such [an accusation]; it hurts our feelings, and thereby proves how unfounded it is, for otherwise it would be easy to treat it with indifference.
- Hans Gude, Reported in Frode Haverkamp. Hans Fredrik Gude: From National Romanticism to Realism in Landscape, trans. Joan Fuglesang (in Norwegian).

The European Union and many of its countries, which used to take initiatives in the United Nations for peaceful settlements of conflict, are now one of the most important war assets of the U.S./NATO front. Many countries have also been drawn into complicity in breaking international law through U.S./U.K./NATO wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and so on.
- Mairead Maguire in The Disturbing Expansion of the Military-Industrial Complex, Common Dreams, (14 October 2014)

If there is anyone who still wonders why this war is being fought, let him look to Norway. If there is anyone who has any delusions that this war could have been averted, let him look to Norway; and if there is anyone who doubts the democratic will to win, again I say, let him look to Norway.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Look to Norway" speech (1942), reported in American Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO (1976). The American Federationist, Page 24, v.48-49 1941-1942.

We have been given an assignment as a monarchy, and we do as well as we can … We try to be as little populistic as possible. We don't do anything on the spur of the moment to win an opinion poll, or short-term popularity.
- Harald V of Norway, interview in Wenche Fuglehaug (November 21, 2005). "Norway's monarchy turns 100", Aftenposten, Aftenposten Multimedia A/S, Oslo, Norway.

We have a high standard of living. … In Norway, we've tripled our income since 1970. In the rest of western Europe, income has merely doubled.
- Jens Stoltenberg, interview in Torgrim Eggen (2001). "At the Top: An interview with Jens Stoltenberg", Scanorama.

Yesterday, on the 17th of May, we Norwegians celebrated our constitution day to mark the signing of Norway's constitution in 1814. Maybe it is because we are a small country: In Norway this is an important day. All over Norway children have paraded in their best clothes to the music of thousands of marching bands, and countless speeches have been made to remind each others, as fellow Norwegians, that freedom should never be taken for granted.
- Andreas Heldal-Lund, Award Winner's Speech, Leipzig Human Rights Award, 2003 Leipzig Human Rights Award of the European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA, (May 18, 2003).

The northern-European welfare states that many American progressives embrace as their ideal were, until very recently, very homogeneous places. Norway, for much of its modern history, had a small minority population of Sami in the north, a few immigrants from neighboring countries, and approximately a thimbleful of immigrants from elsewhere. It was historically not a liberal society on the subject of immigration and integration: Its policy toward the Sami was fornorskning, or Norwegianization, and its 1814 constitution banned Jews from entering the country, a provision revived after the events of 1942. But enjoying an economic boom and fearing a population decline that would undermine its social-welfare model, Norway, beginning in the 1960s, permitted an influx of job-seeking immigrants from Pakistan, Morocco, Turkey, and Yugoslavia. The result of that experiment was a general ban on economic immigration enacted in 1975, with an exception for a few coming from other Nordic countries. Norway’s experience with the cohort from the 1960s and ’70s has been problematic. Their employment rate has dropped from 95 percent to less than 40 percent, their dependency on welfare has increased. Subsequent non-Nordic immigrants, partly the result of chain migration from the first cohort, are less likely to work, earn much less money if they do, and are more heavily dependent on welfare than their native-born counterparts. Trust in Norwegian political institutions is, no surprise, on the decline.
- Kevin D. Williamson, "Homogenity is Their Strength" (10 August 2014), National Review

Harald V of Norway, Garden party in the Palace Park: welcoming speech (September 1, 2016)[edit]

Harald V of Norway, Garden party in the Palace Park: welcoming speech [1] (September 1, 2016)

So what is Norway?
Norway is high mountains and deep fjords. It is wide open spaces and rocky coastlines. It is islands and archipelagos. It is lush farmland and rolling moors.
The sea laps Norway’s shores in the north, west and south.
Norway is midnight sun and polar night. It is harsh winters and mild winters. It is hot summers and cold summers.
Norway is a long and sparsely populated country.
But above all, Norway is its people.
Norwegians come from North Norway, Central Norway, Southern Norway – and all of the other regions. Norwegians have immigrated from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Poland, from Sweden, Somalia and Syria. My grandparents came here from Denmark and England 110 years ago.
Norwegians believe in God, Allah, the Universe and nothing.
Norway is you. Norway is us.
My greatest hope for Norway is that we will be able to take care of one another. That we will continue to build this country – on a foundation of trust, fellowship and generosity of spirit. That we will feel that we are – despite our differences – one people. That Norway is one.

Attributed[edit]

Norway did not even have a revolution at the time the rest of Europe was busy figuring out human rights and stuff, because we were busy fighting over how to spell it.
- Erik Naggum, comp.lang.lisp

[...] and you, my compatriots in Norway, have no grounds for complaining that we have forgotten the dear, familiar and specific character with which God has endowed our land and our nation. That is so firmly entrenched in our being that it finds expression, whether we like it or not. Do not, therefore, insult us further with such [an accusation]; it hurts our feelings, and thereby proves how unfounded it is, for otherwise it would be easy to treat it with indifference.
- Hans Gude, reported in Frode Haverkamp. Hans Fredrik Gude: From National Romanticism to Realism in Landscape, trans. Joan Fuglesang (in Norwegian).

Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble wild prospects. But, Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!
- Samuel Johnson, reported in James Boswell, Life of Johnson (1791), July 6, 1763, p. 120 (Vol. 1)