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Quotes about America

379 quotes from 149 people

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And so I am an American and I have lived half my life in Paris, not the half that made me but the half in which I made what I made.
Gertrude Stein1874–1946An American and France (1936)
It is a trite yet urgently true observation that if America is to remain a first-class nation, it cannot have second-class citizens.
Martin Luther King Jr.1929–1968The Rising Tide of Racial Consciousnes (1960)
I choose to live in what I think is the greatest country in the world, which is committing horrendous terrorist acts and should stop.
Noam Chomskyborn 1928Debate with Bill Bennett on CNN, May 30, 2002
Ultimately, America’s answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.
Robert F. Kennedy1925–1968“Extremism, Left and Right,” pt. 3, (1964)
- Freedom
How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answered that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.
Henry David Thoreau1817–1862Civil Disobedience (1849)In context
- Government
America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.
George W. Bushborn 19469/11 Address to the Nation (2001)
- Freedom
I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.
John Adams1735–1826On the White House, in a letter to Abigail Adams (2 November 1800)
- Prayer
- Presidency
Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace; and America is just ourselves, with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly.
Matthew Arnold1822–1888Culture and Anarchy (1869), Preface
Madam, don’t bring up your sons to detest the United States government. Recollect that we form one country now. Abandon all these local animosities, and make your sons Americans.
Robert E. Lee1807–1870Advice to a Confederate widow who expressed animosity towards the northern U.S. after the end of the American Civil War, as quoted in The Life and Campaigns of General Lee (1875) by Edward Lee Childe, p. 331
We are one nation and one people. Our fate as a nation and our future as a people rest not upon one citizen, but upon all citizens. This is the majesty and the meaning of this moment.
Lyndon B. Johnson1908–1973Inaugural address (January 1965)
And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worth while, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: “I served in the United States Navy.”
John F. Kennedy1917–1963Remarks at the U.S. Naval Academy (1 August 1963), Public Papers of the Presidents 321, p. 620
- Pride
There used to be a time when this country’s president could have delivered the same New Year’s Address he had given a year before, and nobody would have noticed.
Fortunately, that time has passed.
Václav Havel1936–2011New Year’s Address to the Nation (1991)
- Clever Jabs
- Presidency
If one were searching for the best means to efface and kill in a whole nation the discipline of self-respect, the feeling for what is elevated, he could do no better than take the American newspapers.
Matthew Arnold1822–1888Civilization in the United States (1888), p. 177
- Journalism
This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.
John F. Kennedy1917–1963Address on Civil Rights (1963)
- Justice
The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American.
Patrick Henry1736–1799Speech in the First Continental Congress (6 September 1774), as recorded in John Adams’s notes of the debates
- Patriotism