AMERICA QUOTES VI

quotations about America

America quote

America: It's like Britain, only with buttons.

RINGO STARR

attributed, The Mammoth Book of Great British Humor

Tags: Ringo Starr


No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

First Inaugural Address, Apr. 30, 1789

Tags: George Washington, God


The real democratic American idea is, not that every man shall be on a level with every other man, but that every man shall have liberty to be what God made him, without hindrance.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit

Tags: democracy, liberty


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

OSCAR WILDE

attributed, Hating America: A History

Tags: Oscar Wilde, civilization


But now we are becoming suspicious of the very things we have long celebrated--free markets, trade, immigration, and technological change. And all this is happening when the tide is going our way. Just as the world is opening up, America is closing down.

FAREED ZAKARIA

The Post-American World: Release 2.0

Tags: Fareed Zakaria


The American dream does not come to those who fall asleep.

RICHARD NIXON

Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1969

Tags: Richard Nixon


America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance -- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.

AYN RAND

Capitalism: The Unknown Deal

Tags: Ayn Rand, capitalism


An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

attributed, Bernard Shaw: Selections of His Wit and Wisdom

Tags: George Bernard Shaw


Most American cities shop to their best advantage when seen from a height or from a distance, at a point where the ugliness of the buildings dissolves into the beauty of an abstraction.

LEWIS H. LAPHAM

Money and Class in America


What made America great was her ability to transform her own dream into hope for all mankind.

NICOLAS SARKOZY

address to joint session of Congress, Nov. 7, 2007

Tags: dreams


Our nation is the enduring dream of every immigrant who ever set foot on these shores, and the millions still struggling to be free. This nation, this idea called America, was and always will be a new world -- our new world.

GEORGE H. W. BUSH

State of the Union Address, Jan. 31, 1990

Tags: George H. W. Bush


That's why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.

GEORGE CARLIN

standup routine

Tags: George Carlin


The American Dream -- that anyone can achieve success through hard work, grit and determination -- has always had a complicated relationship with the American Reality. Children born at the bottom of the income distribution are more likely than not to stay there. If you're a person of color or your parents aren't married, your odds of rising up are even worse. Policymakers on the left and right often tout education as the bridge to help poor kids make their way up the income ladder -- people with more education make more money. But striking new research from the Brookings Institution shows that simply sending more kids to college won't fix income inequality: As it turns out, a college degree is worth a lot less, earnings-wise, to poor kids than to rich ones.

CHRISTOPHER INGRAHAM

"Still think America is the land of opportunity? Look at this chart.", Washington Post, February 22, 2016


The American Dream means giving it your all, trying your hardest, accomplishing something. And then I'd add to that, giving something back. No definition of a successful life can do anything but include serving others.

GEORGE H. W. BUSH

interview, Academy of Achievement, Jun. 2, 1995

Tags: George H. W. Bush


The American Government calls itself a Government of the supreme people; but at a quick crisis, the time when a sovereign power is most needed, you cannot FIND the supreme people. You have got a Congress elected for one fixed period, going out perhaps by fixed instalments, which cannot be accelerated or retarded--you have a President chosen for a fixed period, and immovable during that period: all the arrangements are for STATED times. There is no ELASTIC element, everything is rigid, specified, dated. Come what may, you can quicken nothing, and can retard nothing. You have bespoken your Government in advance, and whether it suits you or not, whether it works well or works ill, whether it is what you want or not, by law you must keep it.

WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution

Tags: Walter Bagehot


America has been the New World in all tongues, to all peoples, not because this continent was a new-found land, but because all those who came here believed they could create upon this continent a new life -- a life that should be new in freedom.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

Third Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1941

Tags: Franklin D. Roosevelt, freedom


I know this about the American people: We welcome competition. We'll match our ingenuity, our energy, our experience and technology, our spirit and enterprise against anyone.

GEORGE H. W. BUSH

State of the Union Address, Jan. 31, 1990

Tags: George H. W. Bush, competition


I sometimes think that the American story is the one about the reading of the will.

LEWIS H. LAPHAM

Money and Class in America


Traveling across the United States, it's easy to see why Americans are often thought of as stupid. At the San Diego Zoo, right near the primate habitats, there's a display featuring half a dozen life-size gorillas made out of bronze. Posted nearby is a sign reading CAUTION: GORILLA STATUES MAY BE HOT. Everywhere you turn, the obvious is being stated. CANNON MAY BE LOUD. MOVING SIDEWALK IS ABOUT TO END. To people who don't run around suing one another, such signs suggest a crippling lack of intelligence.

DAVID SEDARIS

Me Talk Pretty One Day

Tags: David Sedaris, stupidity


We should keep steadily before our minds the fact that Americanism is a question of principle, of purpose, of idealism, of character; that it is not a matter of birthplace, or creed, or line of descent.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

speech at the unveiling of the monument to General Sheridan, Nov. 25, 1908

Tags: Theodore Roosevelt, idealism