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America87 quotes
America, if eligible at all to downfall and ruin, is eligible within herself, not without. — Walt Whitman · 1871Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door! — Emma Lazarus · 1883At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. — Abraham Lincoln · 1838I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how
beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America. — Langston Hughes · 1926I believe in America. — Amerigo Bonasera · 1972This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island,
From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters;
This land was made for you and me. — Woody Guthrie · 1945All 87 quotes →American politics6 quotes
America, I've given you all and now I'm nothing. — Allen Ginsberg · 1956America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration. — Warren G. Harding · 1920Why, America’s the only free nation on earth. Besides! Country’s too big for a revolution. No, no! Couldn’t happen here! — Sinclair Lewis · 1935Our Nation can be strong abroad only if it is strong at home. And we know that the best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation. — Jimmy Carter · 1977In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. — Spiro Agnew · 1970And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home. — Ronald Reagan · 1989American character4 quotes
The love of wealth is therefore to be traced, as either a principal or accessory motive, at the bottom of all that the Americans do; this gives to all their passions a sort of family likeness. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1840Some sense of religious mission is part of being American. — John Updike · 1996We are a nation of believers. Underneath the clamor of building and the rush of our day's pursuits, we are believers in justice and liberty and in our own union. We believe that every man must some day be free. — Lyndon B. Johnson · 1965America is a nation created by all the hopeful wanderers of Europe, not out of geography and genetics, but out of purpose. — Theodore H. White · 1961American decline4 quotes
America, if eligible at all to downfall and ruin, is eligible within herself, not without. — Walt Whitman · 1871At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. — Abraham Lincoln · 1838You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can't understand what's gone wrong with it. — George Hanson · 1969We're too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We're not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. — Ronald Reagan · 1981Criticism of America3 quotes
The weakness of American civilization, and perhaps the chief reason why it creates so much discontent, is that it is so curiously abstract. It is a bloodless extrapolation of a satisfying life... You dine off the advertiser's "sizzling" and not the meat of the steak. — J.B. Priestley · 1971The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges. — Marcel Duchamp · 1917In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book, or goes to an American play, or looks at an American picture or statue?... Under which of the old tyrannical governments of Europe is every sixth man a slave, whom his fellow-creatures may buy, and sell and torture? — Sydney Smith · 1820Immigration3 quotes
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door! — Emma Lazarus · 1883America is God's crucible, the great melting pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming! — Israel Zangwill · 1908All of our people all over the country-except the pure-blooded Indians-are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, including even those who came over here on the Mayflower. — Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1944America as example2 quotes
We must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are on us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world. — John Winthrop · 1630Our Nation can be strong abroad only if it is strong at home. And we know that the best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation. — Jimmy Carter · 1977American Founding2 quotes
Hey, guys, one more thing, hey, this summer, when you're being inundated with all this American bicentennial Fourth Of July brouhaha, don’t forget what you’re celebrating, and that’s the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic, white males didn’t want to pay their taxes. — Ms. Stroud · 1993I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth. — John Adams · 1765American expansion2 quotes
When the first President, George Washington, placed his hand upon the Bible, he stood less than a single day's journey by horseback from raw, untamed wilderness. There were 4 million Americans in a union of 13 States. Today, we are 60 times as many in a union of 50 States. We've lighted the world with our inventions, gone to the aid of mankind wherever in the world there was a cry for help, journeyed to the Moon and safely returned. So much has changed, and yet we stand together as we did two centuries ago. — Ronald Reagan · 1985The American axe! It has made more real and lasting conquests than the sword of any warlike people that ever lived; but they have been conquests that have left civilization in their train instead of havoc and desolation... A brief quarter of a century has seen these wonderful changes wrought; and at the bottom of them all lies this beautiful, well-prized, ready, and efficient implement, the American axe! — James Fenimore Cooper · 1845American ideals2 quotes
O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free. — Langston Hughes · 1936We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness. — Barack Obama · 2009Equality2 quotes
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island,
From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters;
This land was made for you and me. — Woody Guthrie · 1945I entered the world a slave-in the midst of a country whose most honoured writings declare that all men have a right to liberty. — Henry Box Brown · 1849Love of money2 quotes
The love of wealth is therefore to be traced, as either a principal or accessory motive, at the bottom of all that the Americans do; this gives to all their passions a sort of family likeness. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1840I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken a stronger hold on the affections of men, and where a profounder contempt is expressed for the theory of the permanent equality of property. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1835Slavery2 quotes
I entered the world a slave-in the midst of a country whose most honoured writings declare that all men have a right to liberty. — Henry Box Brown · 1849I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. — John Brown · 1859Societal collapse2 quotes
America, if eligible at all to downfall and ruin, is eligible within herself, not without. — Walt Whitman · 1871At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. — Abraham Lincoln · 1838America and Canada1 quote
Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt. — Pierre Trudeau · 1969America and Europe1 quote
It is a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical arsenal of old Europe. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · 1830America and the world1 quote
Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them. — Thomas Paine · 1776America as refuge1 quote
Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind. — Thomas Paine · 1776America's sins1 quote
Our children have been taught to be ashamed of their country, ashamed of their parents, ashamed of America's record at home and of its role in the world. At every turn, we have been beset by those who find everything wrong with America and little that is right. But I am confident that this will not be the judgment of history on these remarkable times in which we are privileged to live. — Richard Nixon · 1973American Civil War1 quote
I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. — John Brown · 1859American Dream1 quote
I believe in America. — Amerigo Bonasera · 1972American capitalism1 quote
The almighty dollar, that great object of universal veneration throughout our land. — Washington Irving · 1836American diversity1 quote
Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbow-red, yellow, brown, black and white-and all are precious in God's sight. America is not like a blanket, one piece of unbroken cloth-the same color, the same texture, the same size. It is more like a quilt-many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread. — Jesse Jackson · 1984American exceptionalism1 quote
And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home. — Ronald Reagan · 1989American experiment1 quote
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate! — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · 1850American foreign policy1 quote
Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. — John Quincy Adams · 1821American freedom1 quote
America is great indeed. Imagine a country so free, one can throw glass on the streets! — Prince Akeem · 1988American frontier1 quote
There was nothing but land; not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made. — Willa Cather · 1918American history1 quote
We have a place, all of us, in a long story—a story we continue, but whose end we will not see. It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old, the story of a slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom, the story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer. It is the American story—a story of flawed and fallible people, united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals. — George W. Bush · 2001American hypocrisy1 quote
I entered the world a slave-in the midst of a country whose most honoured writings declare that all men have a right to liberty. — Henry Box Brown · 1849