AMERICA QUOTES III
quotations about America
I feel most at home in the United States, not because it is intrinsically a more interesting country, but because no one really belongs there any more than I do. We are all there together in its wholly excellent vacuum.
WYNDHAM LEWIS
"The Case Against Roots", America and Cosmic Man
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
The English Constitution, in a word, is framed on the principle of choosing a single sovereign authority, and making it good; the American, upon the principle of having many sovereign authorities, and hoping that their multitude may atone for their inferiority.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
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
American's greatest deficit is no longer found in the federal budget. It is a moral deficit, and it may be found in a polluted and poisoned culture that has become the great enemy within.
PAT BUCHANAN
speech, Mar. 2, 1999
The English Puritans pulled down church and state to rebuild Zion on the ruins, and all the while it was not Zion, but America, they were building.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"New England Two Centuries Ago", The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose
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
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
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
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.
JOHN ADAMS
Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law, Boston Gazette, Aug. 1765
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
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
I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.
DON DELILLO
The Names
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
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
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
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
I still believe in a place called Hope, a place called America.
BILL CLINTON
speech at Democratic National Convention, August 29, 1996
Never content just to be, America is also obliged to mean; America signifies, hence its constant and riveting vulnerability to illusion.
MARTIN AMIS
"Phantom of the Opera: The Republicans in 1988", Visiting Mr. Nabokov and Other Excursions
To be black in America is to walk with fury.
NATHAN MCCALL
To Be Black in America Is to Walk with Fury