The national interest, often referred to by the French expression raison d'État (English: reason of the State), is a country's goals and ambitions whether economic, military, or cultural. The concept is an important one in international relations where pursuit of the national interest is the foundation of the realist school.
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Famous quotes containing the words national and/or interest:
“...America has enjoyed the doubtful blessing of a single-track mind. We are able to accommodate, at a time, only one national hero; and we demand that that hero shall be uniform and invincible. As a literate people we are preoccupied, neither with the race nor the individual, but with the type. Yesterday, we romanticized the “tough guy;” today, we are romanticizing the underprivileged, tough or tender; tomorrow, we shall begin to romanticize the pure primitive.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945)
“We women are not made for governing and if we are good women, we must dislike these masculine occupations; but there are times which force one to take interest in them mal gré bon gré, and I do, of course, intensely.”
—Victoria (1819–1901)