America Quotes

I 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.

I just want to say this. I want to say it gently but I want to say it firmly: There is a tendency for the world to say to America, "the big problems of the world are yours, you go and sort them out," and then to worry when America wants to sort them out.

America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered.

Our American values are not luxuries but necessities, not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself. Our common vision of a free and just society is our greatest source of cohesion at home and strength abroad, greater than the bounty of our material blessings.

I don't measure America by its achievement but by its potential.

America is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world.

There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence and energy of her citizens cannot cure.

What's right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity - intellect and resources - to do some thing about them.

America is therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World's History shall reveal itself.

America - a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose.

America is not merely a nation but a nation of nations.

Intellectually, I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country.

I see America, not in the setting sun of a black night of despair ahead of us, I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning, creative hand of God. I see great days ahead, great days possible to men and women of will and vision.

America is a young country with an old mentality.

There is a New America every morning when we wake up. It is upon us whether we will it or not.

Europe will never be like America. Europe is a product of history. America is a product of philosophy.

Just what is it that America stands for? If she stands for one thing more than another it is for the sovereignty of self-governing people.

America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses.

This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do.

Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.

I believe America's best days are ahead of us because I believe that the future belongs to freedom, not to fear.

America has never been an empire. We may be the only great power in history that had the chance, and refused – preferring greatness to power and justice to glory.

America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens.

All great change in America begins at the dinner table.

America will never run... And we will always be grateful that liberty has found such brave defenders.

There's the country of America, which you have to defend, but there's also the idea of America. America is more than just a country, it's an idea. An idea that's supposed to be contagious.

Other lands have their vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of our people.

The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people.

I'm not going to quit. Why should I quit? This country is worth fighting for.

America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.

You Europeans know nothing about America. Because we amass large fortunes you think we care for nothing but money. We are nothing for it; the moment we have it we spend it, sometimes well, sometimes ill, but we spend it. Money is nothing to us; it's merely the symbol of success. We are the greatest idealists in the world; I happen to think that we've set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection.

In recent years, we've become enamored with our own past success. Lulled into complacency by the glitter of our own achievements. We've become accustomed to the title of Military Superpower, forgetting the qualities that got us there. We've become accustomed to our economic dominance in the world, forgetting that it wasn't reckless deals and get rich quick schemes that got us where we are, but hard work and smart ideas, quality products and wise investments.

That is the American story. People, just like you, following their passions, determined to meet the times on their own terms. They weren't doing it for the money. Their titles weren't fancy. But they changed the course of history and so can you.

I know starting careers in troubled times is a challenge, but it is also a privilege. Because it's moments like these that force us to try harder, dig deeper and to discover gifts we never knew we had. To find the greatness that lies within each of us. So don't ever shy away from that endeavor. Don't stop adding to your body of work. I can promise that you will be the better for that continued effort as will be this nation that we all love.

I know nothing grander, better exercise, better digestion, more positive proof of the past, the triumphant result of faith in human kind, than a well-contested American national election.

All the perplexities, confusions, and distress in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.

In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs for ever and ever.

America is not a mere body of traders; it is a body of free men. Our greatness-built upon freedom-is moral, not material. we have a great ardor for gain; but we have a deep passion for the rights of man.

The business of America is not business. Neither is it war. The business of America is justice and securing the blessings of liberty.

Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.

I look forward to an america in which commands respect throughout the world, not only for its strength, but for its civilization as well. And I look forward to a world in which we will be safe not only for democracy and diversity but also for personal distinction.

There's the one thing no nation can ever accuse us of and that is secret diplomacy. Our foreign are an open book, generally a check book.

The thing that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their children.

In America any boy may become President and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes.

In a country as big as the United States, you can find fifty examples of anything.

England and America are two countries separated by a common language.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

The trouble with America is that there are far too many wide-open spaces surrounded by teeth.

The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.

America's one of the finest countries anyone ever stole.

What a pity, when Christopher Colombus discovered America, that he ever mentioned it.

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.

From Mount Hollywood, Los Angeles looks rather nice, enveloped in a haze of changing colors. Actually, and in spite of all the healthful sunshine and ocean breezes, it is a bad place - full of old, dying people, who were born old of tired pioneer parents, victims of America - full of curious wild and poisonous growths, decadent religious cults and fake science, and wildcat enterprises, which, with their aim for quick profit, are doomed to collapse and drag down multitudes of people.

America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair.

America's greatest strength, and its greatest weakness, is our belief in second chances, our belief that we can always start over, that things can be made better.

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. That is what makes America what it is.

By heritage and by choice, the United States of America will make that stand.

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.

The women of this nation in 1876, have greater cause for discontent, rebellion and revolution than the men of 1776.

America is not like a blanket: one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt: many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread.

Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy.

Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbow -- red, yellow, brown, black and white -- and we're all precious in God's sight.

I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem-and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

America is the only country ever founded on a creed.

The <i>Declaration of Independence</i> dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.

America is a country that doesn't know where it is going but is determined to set a speed record getting there.

America is a country that doesn't know where it is going but is determined to set a speed record getting there.

America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation.

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

It is by the goodness of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either.

Americans learn only from catastrophe and not from experience.

It is not what we have that will make us a great nation; it is the way in which we use it.

The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled it burns like a consuming flame.

The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the get rich quick theory of life.

Our country offers the most wonderful example of democratic government on a giant scale that the world has ever seen; and the peoples of the world are watching to see whether we succeed or fail.

In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americans.

This country was built on rape, slavery, murder, degradation and affiliation with crime.

The American temptation is to believe that foreign policy is a subdivision of psychiatry.

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.

The Vietnam War required us to emphasize the national interest rather than abstract principles.

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.

Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

The United States stands at the pinnacle of world power. This is a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with primacy in power is joined an awe-inspiring accountability for the future.

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.

If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under.

We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.

California is like an artificial limb the rest of the country doesn't really need. You can quote me on that.

The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine.

It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.

This is a Christian nation.

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

I deplore the need or the use of troops anywhere to get American citizens to obey the orders of constituted courts.

Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

It is our true policy to steer clear of any permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.

The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.

America is the first country to have gone from barbarism to decadence without the usual intervening period of civilization.

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear � kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor � with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.

The thing we all have to understand to put these last two years in focus, is that liberals in this country care more about whether European leaders like us than they do about whether terrorists are killing us.

A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of self-illusion.

I don't intellectually understand you people. I don't understand your hate, I don't understand your rage, I don't understand what it is about the goodness of this country you can't abide.

It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate - to surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance.

We cannot be both the world�s leading champion of peace and the world�s leading supplier of arms.

I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than the means.

If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

We know that equality of individual ability has never existed and never will, but we do insist that equality of opportunity still must be sought.

The business of America is business.

The government of the United States is a device for maintaining in perpetuity the rights of the people, with the ultimate extinction of all privileged classes.

The greatness of our country has been based on our thinking that everyone has a right even to be wrong.

I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

America is no stronger than its people - and that means you and me. Well, I believe in you, and I believe that if we work together then one day we will say, ``We fought the good fight. We finished the race We kept the faith.'' And to our children and our children's children we can say, ``We did all that could be done in the brief time that was given to us here on earth.

In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell.

In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell.

There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.

Today we can declare: Government is not the problem, and government is not the solution. We, the American people, we are the solution.

This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.

Some Americans need hyphens in their names, because only part of them has come over; but when the whole man has come over, heart and thought and all, the hyphen drops of its own weight out of his name.

When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect.

Only Americans can hurt America.

America is a nation with many flaws, but hopes so vast that only the cowardly would refuse to acknowledge them.

We dare not forget that we are the heirs of that first revolution.

Ours is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Our destiny is bound up with the destiny of every other American.

Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world.

We need an America with the wisdom of experience. But we must not let America grow old in spirit.

The United States is the only country with a known birthday.

What we need are critical lovers of America - patriots who express their faith in their country by working to improve it.

America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact - the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality.

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.

America is an enormous frosted cupcake in the middle of millions of starving people.

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense...human rights invented America.

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong.

America is a large friendly dog in a small room. Every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair.

Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American.

America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy.

United States! Go put your creed into your deed.

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

America is a mistake, a giant mistake.

America is the most grandiose experiment the world has seen, but, I am afraid, it is not going to be a success.

The Constitution shall never be construed...to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.

Driven from every other corner of the earth, freedom of thought and the right of private judgment in matters of conscience direct their course to this happy country as their last resort.

The country shall be independent, and we will be satisfied with nothing short of it.

The government at Washington does live. It lives in the pages of our Constitution and in the hearts of our citizens, and there it will always be safe.

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people.

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.

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.

Four years ago, some said the world had grown calm, and many assumed that the United States was invulnerable to danger. That thought might have been comforting; it was also false. Like other generations of Americans, we soon discovered that history had great and unexpected duties in store for us.

We have to make America the best place in the world to do business.

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.

In the United States the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.

When American(s) ask for the cooperation of (their) fellow citizens, it is seldom refused; and I have often seen it afforded spontaneously and with great good will.

In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.

Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.

Born often under another sky, placed in the middle of an always moving scene, himself driven by the irresistible torrent which draws all about him, the American has no time to tie himself to anything, he grows accustomed only to change, and ends by regarding it as the natural state of man. He feels the need of it, more he loves it; for the instability; instead of meaning disaster to him, seems to give birth only to miracles all about him.

The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.

The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.

When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.

My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.

To those new States whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.

It was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.

The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.

You give me a credit to which I have no claim in calling me 'the writer of the Constitution of the United States.' This was not, like the fabled Goddess of Wisdom, the offspring of a single brain. It ought to be regarded as the work of many heads and many hands.

America...just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.