Quotes about America
379 quotes from 149 people
The Republic is a dream.
Nothing happens unless first a dream.
Carl Sandburg1878–1967“Washington Monument by Night” in Slabs of the Sunburnt West (1922)The destiny of the colored American … is the destiny of America.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895Speech at the Emancipation League (12 February 1862), BostonAmerican writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.
Gore Vidal1925–2012Two Sisters: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel (1970)I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.
Franklin D. Roosevelt1882–1945Speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president, 1932 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois (2 July 1932)This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.
John F. Kennedy1917–1963Third State of the Union AddressAmerica is my country and Paris is my home town and it is as it has come to be.
Gertrude Stein1874–1946An American and France (1936)If you want to see your plays performed the way you wrote them, become President.
Václav Havel1936–2011Address to the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London quoted in The Independent, London (24 March 1990)
Will Rogers1879–1935Daily Telegram #1355 (26 November 1930)
Harry S. Truman1884–1972Harry Truman at Chicago, 17 March 1945, as recorded in Good Old Harry
Martin Luther King Jr.1929–1968Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter XV.
Robert Frost1874–1963“The Gift Outright”, originally recited it at the College of William & Mary in 1941; first published in the Virginia Quarterly Review (Spring 1942)
Noam Chomskyborn 1928Making the Future: Occupations, Interventions, Empire and Resistance (2012), p. 83- Franklin D. Roosevelt1882–1945Radio address (2 March 1930), in Public Papers of Governor Roosevelt (1930), p. 710
James Madison1751–1836“Outline” notes (September 1829), in The Writings of James Madison (1910) by Gaillard Hunt, Vol. 9, p. 357