Switzerland

Map of Switzerland's location

The Swiss are offended by being called gentlemen, and prove themselves true plebeians in order to be thought worthy of great office. ~ Blaise Pascal

There is no more beautiful scenery or climate for summer travel than Switzerland presents. The people are industrious and honest, simple and frugal in their habits. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture. ~ Ernest Hemingway

Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country situated at the confluence of Western, Central and Southern Europe. It is a federal republic composed of 26 cantons, with federal authorities based in Bern. Swiss law does not designate a capital as such, but the federal parliament and government are located in Bern, while the federal courts are located in other cities.

Switzerland is home to several offices of international organisations such as the WTO, the WHO, the ILO, the headquarters of FIFA, the UN's second-largest office, as well as the main building of the Bank for International Settlements. It is also the birthplace of the Red Cross, one of the world's oldest and best known humanitarian organisations.

Since the Reformation of the 16th century, Switzerland has maintained a strong policy of armed neutrality; it has not fought an international war since 1815 and did not join the United Nations until 2002. Nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world.

Quotes[edit]

A[edit]

James Bond: If you can't trust a Swiss banker, what's the world come to?

The World Is Not Enough (1999), directed by Michael Apted, MGM

G[edit]

There is no more beautiful scenery or climate for summer travel than Switzerland presents. The people are industrious and honest, simple and frugal in their habits, and would be very poor with all this, if it were not from the travel through their country. I wish their suprlus population would emigrate to the United States.
- Ulysses S. Grant, letter to Daniel Ammen (26 August 1877), as quoted in The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant: November 1, 1876-September 30, 1878, pp. 251–252

Switzerland is only bearable covered with snow... like some people are only bearable under a sheet.
- Graham Greene, as quoted in Travels With My Aunt

[I]n Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, and they had 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
- Graham Greene, as quoted in "A Point of View: Are tyrants good for art?" (August 2012), BBC News

H[edit]

Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.
- Ernest Hemingway, The Toronto Star Weekly (4 March 1922).

L[edit]

Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The Fate of Adelaide (1821), Title poem, opening lines.

Romantic Switzerland! thy scenes are traced
With characters of strange wild loveliness,
Beauty and desolation, side by side;
Here lofty rocks uprise, where nature seems
To dwell alone in silent majesty;
Rob'd by the snow, her stately palace fram'd
Of the white hills; towering in all their pride,
The frost's gigantic mounds are lost in clouds,
Like to vast castles rear'd in middle air.
The ice has sculptur'd too strange imagery—
Obelisks, columns, spires, fantastic piles;
Some like the polish'd marble, others clear
As the rock crystal, others sparkling with
The hues that melt along the sunborn bow.

P[edit]

The Swiss are offended at being called gentlemen, and have to establish the proof of their low origin, in order to qualify them for stations of importance.
- Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1669)
- Original French: Les Suisses s’offensent d’être dits gentilshommes, et prouvent leur roture de race pour être jugés dignes de grands emplois.
- Alternate translation: The Swiss are offended at being called gentlemen, and prove the mean extraction of their race, in order to be deemed worthy of great places.
- Alternate translation: The Swiss are offended at being called gentlemen, and prove themselves plebeians in order to be judged worthy of great employments.

R[edit]

I am certain that the only permanently safe attitude for this country as regards national preparedness for self-defense is along its lines of universal service on the Swiss model. Switzerland is the most democratic of nations. Its army is the most democratic army in the world. There isn't a touch of militarism or aggressiveness about Switzerland. It has been found as a matter of actual practical experience in Switzerland that the universal military training has made a very marked increase in social efficiency and in the ability of the man thus trained to do well for himself in industry. The man who has received the training is a better citizen, is more self-respecting, more orderly, better able to hold his own, and more willing to respect the rights of others and at the same time he is a more valuable and better paid man in his business.
- Theodore Roosevelt, "Address to the Knights of Columbus" (October 1915)

W[edit]

In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed - they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love and five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!
- Orson Welles as the character Harry Lime in the film The Third Man (1949).