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Quotes about America

379 quotes from 149 people

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America 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)
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)
America is an enormous frosted cupcake in the middle of millions of starving people.
Gloria Steinem1934–2026
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.
Adlai Stevenson II1900–1965Speech to the American Legion convention, New York City (27 August 1952); as quoted in “Democratic Candidate Adlai Stevenson Defines the Nature of Patriotism” in Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches In History (2004) by William Safire, p. 81—82
- Freedom
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.
Adlai Stevenson II1900–1965
In America, anyone can become president. That’s one of the risks you take.
Adlai Stevenson II1900–1965Speech in Indianapolis, Indiana (26 September 1952)
- Presidency
What do I believe? As an American I believe in generosity, in liberty, in the rights of man.
Adlai Stevenson II1900–1965Essay in This I Believe: 2 (1952) edited by Edward R. Murrow, p. 142
- Liberty
Here’s the way I look at it. President Bush has uranium-tipped bunker busters and I have puns. I think he’ll be OK.
Jon Stewartborn 1962Rolling Stone interview, October 31, 2006
- Humor
- Presidency
I am a man, a black man, an American.
Clarence Thomasborn 1948I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)
- Race
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.
Hunter S. Thompson1937–2005“September,”, p. 413
- Guns
The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country.
Hunter S. Thompson1937–2005“Kingdom of Fear” (12 September 2001)
- War & Peace
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
Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter III, Part I
- 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.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859National Character of Americans—first impressions (1831) Oeuvres complètes, vol. VIII, p. 233.
- Change
The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter XVIII.