Talk:Brazil

Looking for attribution:

"Brazil is a country of the future... and always will be."

The earliest source for this I can find is from 1947, but until I can find the actual text (hoping a library has it) I'll leave it here under Talk... Here is the full quote, with context:

"This was Brazil, a Brazil that few Brazilians knew, although it constitutes nearly two-thirds of their country. 'Brazil, Land of the Future,' said my companion startling me from my revery. He was pointing at Stefan Zweig's book [Stefan Zweig, Brazil: Land of the Future, NY: Viking Press, 1942] which lay on my lap. 'Yes,' said he, 'Brazil, Land of the Future and always will be!' As I looked at my friend I saw pictured in his..."

This is as much as Google Books deigns to show. The source is given as: The Land (or perhaps The Land and Land News), v. 6, p. 184. --Potosino (talk) 21:06, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Unsourced

• Le Brésil n’est pas un pays [sérieux]. (Brazil is not a [serious] country.)
  • Attributed to Charles de Gaulle, but probably said by Carlos Alves de Souza Filho, during the "lobster war".

• Brazil is the country of the future and always will be.
  • It has been attributed to Charles De Gaulle.

Removed quotes

Wikiquote is not a collection of information found in textbooks and guides. → WQ:NOTTEXTBOOK --MonstrumVenandi (talk) 00:07, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Extended content

Brazil is always a party. You can tan and mingle with the locals on the country's seemingly endless beaches, from Rio's glamorous Copacabana to the unspoiled treasures along the northeastern shores. In the vast interior, outdoor adventures thrill: take a spray-soaked boat ride into Iguaçu's raging waterfalls or spot exotic wildlife in the Pantanal. On rugged treks through the Amazon rain forest or on shopping expeditions in São Paulo's chic boutiques, you will plunge into a vibrant mix of colors, rhythms, and cultures. "Brazil Travel Guide", Fodor's Travel Brazilians often say they live in a continent rather than a country. It’s an excusable exaggeration. The landmass is bigger than the United States if you exclude Alaska; the journey from Recife in the east to the western border with Peru is longer than that from London to Moscow, and the distance between the northern and southern borders is about the same as that between New York and Los Angeles. Brazil has no mountains to compare with its Andean neighbors, but in every other respect it has all the scenic – and cultural – variety you would expect from so vast a country. "Brazil", Rough Guides Two-thirds of Brazil’s population live on or near the coast and well over half live in cities – even in the Amazon. In Rio and São Paulo, Brazil has two of the world’s great metropolises, and ten other cities have over a million inhabitants. Yet Brazil still thinks of itself as a frontier country, and certainly the deeper into the interior you go, the thinner the population becomes. Other South Americans regard Brazilians as a race apart, and language has a lot to do with it – Brazilians understand Spanish, just about, but Spanish-speakers won’t understand Portuguese. Brazilians also look different. In the extreme south German and eastern European immigration has left distinctive traces; São Paulo has the world’s largest Japanese community outside Japan; slavery lies behind a large Afro-Brazilian population concentrated in Rio, Salvador and São Luís; while the Indian influence is still very visible in the Amazon. Italian and Portuguese immigration has been so great that its influence is felt across the entire country. "Brazil", Rough Guides Brazil is a land of profound economic contradictions. Rapid post-war industrialization made it one of the world’s ten largest economies by the 1990s and it is misleading to think of Brazil as a developing country; it is quickly becoming the world’s leading agricultural exporter and has several home-grown multinationals competing successfully in world markets. The last decade has seen millions of Brazilians haul their way into the country’s expanding middle class, and across-the-board improvements in social indicators like life expectancy and basic education. But yawning social divides are still a fact of life in Brazil. The cities are dotted with favelas, shantytowns that crowd around the skyscrapers, and there are wide regional differences, too: Brazilians talk of a “Switzerland” in the South, centred on the Rio–São Paulo axis, and an “India” above it, and although this is a simplification the level of economic development does fall the further north or east you go. Brazil has enormous natural resources but their exploitation has benefited fewer than it should. Institutionalized corruption, a bloated and inefficient public sector and the reluctance of the country’s middle class to do anything that might jeopardize its comfortable lifestyle are a big part of the problem. Levels of violence that would be considered a public emergency in most countries are fatalistically accepted in Brazil – an average of seventeen murders per day in the city of Rio de Janeiro, for example. "Brazil", Rough Guides. Difficulties, however, don’t overshadow everyday life in Brazil, and violence rarely affects tourists. It’s fair to say that nowhere in the world do people enjoy themselves more – most famously in the annual orgiastic celebrations of Carnaval, but reflected, too, in the lively year-round nightlife that you’ll find in any decent-sized town. This national hedonism also manifests itself in Brazil’s highly developed beach culture, superb music and dancing, rich regional cuisines and the most relaxed and tolerant attitude to sexuality – gay and straight – that you’ll find anywhere in South America. "Brazil", Rough Guides. Following more than three centuries under Portuguese rule, Brazil gained its independence in 1822, maintaining a monarchical system of government until the abolition of slavery in 1888 and the subsequent proclamation of a republic by the military in 1889. Brazilian coffee exporters politically dominated the country until populist leader Getulio VARGAS rose to power in 1930. By far the largest and most populous country in South America, Brazil underwent more than a half century of populist and military government until 1985, when the military regime peacefully ceded power to civilian rulers. Brazil continues to pursue industrial and agricultural growth and development of its interior. Having successfully weathered a period of global financial difficulty in the late 20th century, Brazil was seen as one of the world’s strongest emerging markets and a contributor to global growth. The awarding of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympic Games, the first ever to be held in South America, was seen as symbolic of the country’s rise. However, from about 2013 to 2016, Brazil was plagued by a sagging economy, high unemployment, and high inflation, only emerging from recession in 2017. Political scandal resulted in the impeachment of President Dilma ROUSSEFF in May 2016, a conviction that was upheld by the Senate in August 2016; her vice president, Michel TEMER, will serve as president until 1 January 2019, completing her second term. CIA World Factbook One of the world's most captivating places, Brazil is a country of powdery white-sand beaches, verdant rainforests and wild, rhythm-filled metropolises. Brazil's attractions extend from frozen-in-time colonial towns to otherworldly landscapes of red-rock canyons, thundering waterfalls and coral-fringed tropical islands. Then there's Brazil's biodiversity: legendary in scope, its diverse ecosystems boast the greatest collection of plant and animal species found anywhere on earth. There are countless places where you can spot iconic species in Brazil, including toucans, scarlet macaws, howler monkeys, capybara, pink dolphins, sea turtles and thousands of other living species. "Introducing Brazil", Lonely Planet Brazil offers big adventures for travelers with budgets large and small. There's horseback riding and wildlife-watching in the Pantanal, kayaking flooded forests in the Amazon, ascending rocky cliff tops to panoramic views, whale-watching off the coast, surfing stellar breaks off palm-fringed beaches and snorkeling crystal-clear rivers or coastal reefs – all are part of the great Brazilian experience. No less entrancing is the prospect of doing nothing, aside from sinking toes into warm sands and soaking up a glorious stretch of beach, with a caipirinha – Brazil's national cocktail – in hand. "Introducing Brazil", Lonely Planet Brazil's most famous celebration, Carnaval, storms through the country's cities and towns with hip-shaking samba and frevo, dazzling costumes and parties that last until sun up, but Brazilians hardly limit their revelry to a few weeks of the year. Festas (festivals) happen throughout the year, and provide a window into Brazil's incredible diversity. The streets are carpeted with flowers during Ouro Preto's Semana Santa (Holy Week), while in the north, Bumba Meu Boi blends indigenous, African and Portuguese folklore. For a taste of the old world, hit Blumenau's beer- and schnitzel-loving Oktoberfest, the largest outside of Germany. Several cities, such as Recife, Fortaleza and Natal even host Carnaval at other times of year. "Introducing Brazil", Lonely Planet Wherever there's music, that carefree lust for life tends to appear – whether dancing with cariocas at Rio's atmospheric samba clubs or following powerful drumbeats through the streets of Salvador. There's the dancehall forró of the Northeast, twirling carimbó of the Amazon, scratch-skilled DJs of São Paulo and an endless variety of regional sounds that extends from the twangy country music of the sunbaked sertanejo to the hard-edged reggae of Maranhão. "Introducing Brazil", Lonely Planet

Tangential

• The persistence into the twentieth century of a specific institutional pattern inimical to growth in Mexico and Latin America is well illustrated by the fact that, just as in the nineteenth century, the pattern generated economic stagnation and political instability, civil wars and coups, as groups struggled for the benefits of power. Díaz finally lost power to revolutionary forces in 1910. The Mexican Revolution was followed by others in Bolivia in 1952, Cuba in 1959, and Nicaragua in 1979. Meanwhile, sustained civil wars raged in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Peru. Expropriation or the threat of expropriation of assets continued apace, with mass agrarian reforms (or attempted reforms) in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, and Venezuela. Revolutions, expropriations, and political instability came along with military governments and various types of dictatorships. Though there was also a gradual drift toward greater political rights, it was only in the 1990s that most Latin American countries became democracies, and even then they remain mired in instability.
  • Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Poverty, and Prosperity (2012) --- might work in Latin America

• The draft law [whereby is "any alteration, edition, suppression, addition, or adaptation to the texts of the Holy Bible" in the State of Pernambuco prohibited] is obviously unconstitutional, as it would ask secular judges to determine what books in the Bible are part of the canon and what translation is correct or otherwise. However, the very fact that a leading state legislator has proposed it confirms that religious intolerance is a serious problem in Brazil.
  • Massimo Introvigne, "Brazil: Law Introduced in Pernambuco Would Forbid “Altering” the Bible", Bitter Winter (June 10, 2023) --- very recent

• Like many commodity dependent emerging markets, Brazil has imploded both economically and investment-wise over the past couple of years. I warned investors to bail out of the country back in September of 2012 as it was evident a huge bubble had formed. Things have become worse than I could have imagined and, given the state of things down south, it is hard to imagine things improving in 2016. The only question investors should be asking is, do the problems in Brazil and other emerging markets have the potential to cause problems here in 2016?
  • Bret Jensen, "Bye, Bye Brazil?" (22 December 2015), Seeking Alpha

• Violence has long been a fact of life in Brazil. Amnesty International reports that in 2004 there were 663 killings by officers in Sao Paulo state, and 983 in Rio de Janeiro State.
  • Steve Kingstone, "Brazilian's death was 'third-world error'" (25 July 2005), BBC News, United Kingdom: British Broadcasting Corporation

• Throughout my my career – which began in 1990 right when the press became unionized – the themes have generally been social-political issues: police brutality, state terrorism, corruption, political maneuvers…And not just in Brazil, the themes I tackle looking abroad include war, armed conflicts, and torture. I’ve also done a lot about the Brazilian military dictatorship.
  • Interview with Brasilwire (2017)

• Here in Brazil it's common for the police to act violently, especially against poor and black people.
  • Maria Luisa Mendonca, as quoted in "Brazilian's death was 'third-world error'" (25 July 2005), by Steve Kingstone, BBC News, United Kingdom: British Broadcasting Corporation

• Slavery will remain for a long time as the chief national characteristic of Brazil. It spread throughout our vast lonely lands a huge softness [of mores]; its contact was the first to shape the virgin nature of the country, and it was the one recorded there. It [slavery] peopled it [Brazil] like a living natural religion, with its myths, legends and spells.
  • Joaquim Nabuco, as quoted in "Did Brazil get over slavery?" (March 2015), by Jose Geraldo Gouvea, Quora -- unsourced

• One of the biggest threats to biodiversity is the continued loss of virgin forests. Every year, an area of forest corresponding to the size of Hungary disappears. However, the rate of deforestation has fallen by 40 per cent since the 1990s, according to the FAO. Deforestation has ceased in rich countries. In the United States and Europe forested areas are increasing. In China and India, too, forests are now growing, suggesting that rising populations and economies do not have to cause overexploitation. Were it not for deforestation in seven countries – Brazil, Paraguay, Angola, Congo, Tanzania, Indonesia and Myanmar – the world’s forests would have grown in the 2010s. That is not much of a comfort, given the unique natural values lost with those forests. But it shows that the notion that we are experiencing a relentless global deforestation does not hold.
  • Johan Norberg, The Capitalist Manifesto: Why the Global Free Market Will Save the World (2023) -- Deforestation
• We are also seeing a diffusion of power and competition at the nation state level. This competition comes not just from Russia and China, but also from emerging countries like Brazil, India, Indonesia, and the other ASEAN states. These states are also beginning to organize themselves into structures outside of and somewhat in competition.
  • Stephen J. Hadley, "America's Role In The World" (30 October 2014), Lowy Institute -- Geopolitics Ficaia (talk) 02:43, 19 July 2025 (UTC)