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:
“Nothing is so well calculated to produce a death-like torpor in the country as an extended system of taxation and a great national debt.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)
“A man’s interest in the world is only the overflow from his interest in himself. When you are a child your vessel is not yet full; so you care for nothing but your own affairs. When you grow up, your vessel overflows; and you are a politician, a philosopher, or an explorer and adventurer. In old age the vessel dries up: there is no overflow: you are a child again.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)