By means of steam one can go from California to Japan in eighteen days.

By means of steam one can go from California to Japan in eighteen days.

If Japan had been near to either England or France, war would have broken out long ago.

It will be quite satisfactory if you open them gradually, as the circumstances may require; but the President assures you that this will not be the case if you make a treaty with England first.

It appears that the English think the Japanese... are fond of opium, and they want to bring it here also.

If you make a treaty first with the United States and settle the matter of the opium trade, England cannot change this, though she should desire to do so.

Since the invention of steamships distant countries have become like those that are near at hand.

We do not wish to open your ports to foreign trade all at once.

As the treaty made with the United States was the first treaty entered into by your country with other countries, therefore the President regards Japan with peculiar friendliness.

The President of the United States thinks that for the Japanese opium is more dangerous than war.

If I write in my name to the agents of England and France residing in Asia and inform them that Japan is ready to make a commercial treaty with their countries, the number of steamers will be reduced from fifty to two or three.

If war should break out between England and Japan, the latter would suffer much more than the former.

The expense of a war could be paid in time; but the expense of opium, when once the habit is formed, will only increase with time.

In case of war, a treaty would have to be made at the end of the war.

The United States have no possessions in the east and do not desire to have any, as other countries do.

Any nation that refuses to hold intercourse with other nations must expect to be excluded from this family.

The President is of opinion that if Japan makes a treaty with the United States, all other foreign countries will make the same kind of a treaty, and Japan will be safe thereafter.

Two things are desired in order that intercourse may be had: First, that a minister or agent be allowed to reside at the capital. Second, that commerce between different countries be freely allowed.

Japan and China are isolated and without intercourse with other countries; hence the President directed me to attend to or watch the state of affairs in China also.

We were sent to this country by the President, who desires to promote the welfare of Japan, and are quite different from the ambassadors of other countries.

When the ambassadors of other foreign countries come to Japan to make treaties, they can be told that such and such a treaty has been made with the ambassador of the United States, and they will rest satisfied with this.

The nations of the West hope that by means of steam communication all the world will become as one family.

In time of war steamships and improved arms are the most important things.

The President wishes the Japanese to be very prudent about the introduction of opium, and if a treaty is made, he wishes that opium may be strictly prohibited.

The President regards the Japanese as a brave people; but courage, though useful in time of war, is subordinate to knowledge of arts; hence, courage without such knowledge is not to be highly esteemed.

Absolute space, in its own nature, without regard to anything external, remains always similar and immovable. Relative space is some movable dimension or measure of the absolute spaces, which our senses determine by its position to bodies, and which is vulgarly taken for immovable space.

Whose rights will we acknowledge? Whose human dignity will we respect? For whose well-being will we, as a people, assume responsibility?

It was my wife that insisted I do 'The Hangover.'

The European nations take climate change very seriously.

Sucking up to the biggies won't get us anywhere.

Rome has grown since its humble beginnings that it is now overwhelmed by its own greatness.

For a house to be successful, the objects in it must communicate with one another, respond and balance one another.

I believe however that peace is attainable regardless of the Arabs mentality, society or government.

I love working.

I love to cook. It is a simple pastime.

We are not yet at the point where our size, our being the drama industry, is sufficient to support full time professional crews, and that is very very important.

I got picked on a lot. I was a complete geek in school. I had braces. I didn't have the hot girlfriend. I wasn't ever sought after. I was a stocky, awkward kid who got laughed off the tennis court when I tried that.

One is lucky to be born in a place where no one is doing it, because then you can say, 'Well, obviously I can write better than everyone else in high school.' You have no idea of the competition.

I didn't really know I wanted to act when I was a child. I have a lot of interests, and I really wanted to finish my education - go to college - and didn't really want to have a career as an adolescent.

When we get impatient because something is taking too long, we should remember that Life waits on us a thousand times more than we wait on Life.

Nothing grows old-fashioned so fast as modernity.

Wes Craven was the guy who gave me my start, from my perspective, for almost no reason in particular.

I will be able to look back on my teen years as spent on a television set just having the biggest bunch of fun.

Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, and I love that. It's cool to have different foods from all over the world within a stone's throw of my house.

Part of being a man is learning to take responsibility for your successes and for your failures. You can't go blaming others or being jealous. Seeing somebody else's success as your failure is a cancerous way to live.

Only mothers can think of the future - because they give birth to it in their children.

We have to do whatever we can to ensure that no child dies of diarrhea.

I won't lie - I picked up the occasional gossip magazine in the past because I thought that maybe 5 to 10 percent of it was true. Now I think it's zero percent.

I believe in a packed Heaven and an empty Hell.