AMERICA QUOTES IV
quotations about America
I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country; he is a bird of bad moral character; like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy. The turkey is a much more respectable bird.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
letter to Sarah Bache, Jan. 26, 1784
Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
GORE VIDAL
Screening History
We're entering our third century now, but it's wrong to judge our nation by its years. The calendar can't measure America because we were meant to be an endless experiment in freedom -- with no limit to our reaches, no boundaries to what we can do, no end point to our hopes. The United States Constitution is the impassioned and inspired vehicle by which we travel through history. It grew out of the most fundamental inspiration of our existence: that we are here to serve Him by living free -- that living free releases in us the noblest of impulses and the best of our abilities; that we would use these gifts for good and generous purposes and would secure them not just for ourselves and for our children but for all mankind.
RONALD REAGAN
State of the Union Address, Jan. 27, 1987
This is America and I'll make as much noise as I want so just shut your own mouth.
GARRISON KEILLOR
Liberty: A Novel of Lake Wobegon
America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known. We were born out of revolution against an empire. We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal. And we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words, within our borders and around the world. We are shaped by every culture. Drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept, E pluribus unum: Out of many, one.
BARACK OBAMA
speech, Jun. 4, 2009
We have no choice, we people of the United States, as to whether or not we shall play a great part in the world. That has been determined to us by fate, by the march of events. We have to play that part. All that we can decide is whether we shall play it well or ill.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
speech in San Francisco, California, May 13, 1903
The IQ and the life expectancy of the average American recently passed each other in opposite directions.
GEORGE CARLIN
standup routine
What joins the Americans one to another is not a common ancestry, language or race, but a shared work of the imagination that looks forward to the making of a future, not backward to the insignia of the past. Their enterprise is underwritten by a Constitution that allows for the widest horizons of sight and the broadest range of expression, supports the liberties of the people as opposed to the ambitions of the state, and stands as premise for a narrative rather than plan for an invasion or a monument. The narrative was always plural; not one story, many stories.
LEWIS H. LAPHAM
"Them", Lapham's Quarterly: Foreigners, winter 2014
Well, America is never a laughingstock because it's too powerful for that. But people do want clarity and consistency.
TONY BLAIR
interview, Politico, September 25, 2017
I saw in their eyes something I was to see over and over in every part of the nation -- a burning desire to go, to move, to get under way, anyplace, away from any Here. They spoke quietly of how they wanted to go someday, to move about, free and unanchored, not toward something but away from something. I saw this look and heard this yearning everywhere in every states I visited. Nearly every American hungers to move.
JOHN STEINBECK
Travels with Charley: In Search of America
In this country, there is an opportunity for the development of man's intellectual, cultural, and spiritual potentialities that has never existed before in the history of our species. I mean not simply an opportunity for greatness for a few, but an opportunity for greatness for the many.
EDWIN H. LAND
address at MIT, "Generation of Greatness: The Idea of a University in an Age of Science", May 22, 1957
America has seen tough times before. We've always known how to get through them. And we've always believed our best days are ahead of us. I believe that still. But we must rise to the occasion, as we always have; change what must be changed; and make the future better than the past.
JOHN MCCAIN
speech, Jun. 3, 2008
Whether our ancestors came here on the Mayflower, on slave ships, whether they came to Ellis Island or LAX in Los Angeles, whether they came yesterday or walked this land a thousand years ago our great challenge for the 21st century is to find a way to be One America. We can meet all the other challenges if we can go forward as One America.
BILL CLINTON
State of the Union Address, Jan. 19, 1999
America is much more than a country. It's an ideal, a value system. Put simply, it's the best idea the world has ever had. That's why American greatness and leadership is indispensable to civilization, as we know it.
NICK ADAMS
"Political correctness is destroying America. That's why I am on a mission to crush it", FOX News, February 25, 2016
He is still trying to keep up with America, as it changes styles and costumes and vocabulary, as it dances ahead ever young, ever younger.
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit at Rest
Of course, I must say that I don't think America is God's gift to anybody -- if it is, God's days have got to be numbered.
JAMES BALDWIN
If Beale Street Could Talk
We must face the bitter fact that we have forsaken our great dream of a life of, for, and by the people; that the burning passions and ideals of the American dream lie congealed by cold cynicism. Great parts of the masses of our people no longer believe that they have a voice or a hand in shaping the destiny of this nation. They have not forsaken democracy because of any desire or positive action of their own; they have been driven down into the depths of a great despair born of frustration, hopelessness, and apathy. A democracy lacking in popular participation dies of paralysis.
SAUL ALINSKY
Reveille for Radicals
Some of us grew up in households, for example, hearing that America is always right and never makes a mistake in the world. Others of us grew up in families that were so critical of America that the country was always described as a bully or an oppressor. In both cases, if we want to grow up to be free, we will have to unlearn the simple half-truths we were taught and develop the discernment to decide for ourselves when America's actions at home and abroad are virtuous--and when they are not. Always praising America is not patriotism. It is idolatry. But always criticizing America is not patriotism, either. It is ingratitude. The former is blind to America's faults; the latter is blind to America's virtues.
MARK GERZON
The Reunited States of America: How We Can Bridge the Partisan Divide
America is aggressive. America is a society that is used to aggression. So they listen to news about crimes in the same way they listen to the weather forecast. Most of these incidents appear strange to any foreigner. For example, one day American television reported two bizarre incidents. The first one was in Miami. One of the workers in a factory did not like the work shifts, so he shot and killed nine people and wounded three others. In the second incident, a man kidnapped two young girls and raped them. We should ask ourselves, is crime in American society more frequent and more dangerous than it is in any other society? Or does it just appear that way because everything is reported and not concealed?
KARIMA KAMAL
"An Egyptian Girl in America", America in an Arab Mirror: Images of America in Arabic Travel Literature
I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.
DON DELILLO
The Names