America

The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered ... deeply ... finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people. ~~ George Washington

Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves. ~~ Albert Einstein

Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half. ~~ Gore Vidal

Let us talk sense to the American people. Let us tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains. ~~ Adlai Stevenson

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected. ~~ Oscar Wilde

Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages. ~~ H. L. Mencken

We're going to have the best-educated American people in the world. ~~ Dan Quayle

[when asked by a reporter if she had any message for the children of America] No. ~~ Amy Carter [daughter of Jimmy Carter]

Our country was founded on a distrust of government. Our founding fathers gave power to the people to keep an eye on government. So when politicians say, "Trust me," they're actually being very un-American. ~~ David Duchovny

You think America is the biggest place on Earth, but it's not. [The view from Mir] put everything in perspective. ~~ Shannon Lucid

But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American War? The revolution was effected before the war commenced. The revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people. ~~ John Adams

Winston Churchill was not entirely British. His mother was American, making Sir Winston part Iroquois Indian. ~~ Deane Jordan

I wish that all Americans would realize that American politics is world politics. ~~ Theodore Roosevelt

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world. ~~ Benjamin Harrison

We really are 15 countries, and it's really remarkable that each of us thinks we represent the real America. The Midwesterner in Kansas, the black American in Durham -- both are certain they are the real American. ~~ Maya Angelou

America: Where a man can say what he thinks, if he isn't afraid of his wife, his boss, his customer, his neighbors, or the government. ~~ Joe Moore

Wherever I have gone in this country, I have found Americans. ~~ Alf Landon

The American ideal is youth -- handsome, empty youth. ~~ Henry Miller

I have news for the forces of greed and the defenders of the status quo: your time has come -- and gone. It's time for change in America. ~~ Bill Clinton

Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic. ~~ Dan Rather

Making duplicate copies and computer printouts of things no one wanted even one of in the first place is giving America a new sense of purpose. ~~ Andy Rooney

America is a large friendly dog in a small room. Every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair. ~~ Arnold Toynbee

England and America are two countries separated by the same language. ~~ George Bernard Shaw

I express many absurd opinions, but I am not the first man to do it; American freedom consists largely in talking nonsense. ~~ Edgar Watson Howe

No man has a right in America to treat any other man tolerantly, for tolerance is the assumption of superiority. ~~ Wendell Willkie

One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude. ~~ Carl Sandburg

When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white man came, an Indian said simply, "Ours." ~~ Vine Deloria, Jr.

The United States has the power to destroy the world, but not the power to save it alone. ~~ Margaret Mead

The Constitution of the United States is not a mere lawyers' document; it is a vehicle of life, and its spirit is always the spirit of the age. ~~ Woodrow Wilson

Because systems of mass communication can communicate only officially acceptable levels of reality, no one can know the extent of the secret unconscious life. No one in America can know what will happen. No one is in real control. ~~ Allen Ginsberg

We must stop talking about the American dream and start listening to the dreams of Americans. ~~ Reubin Askew

[America is] still the best country for the common man -- white or black ... if he can't make it here he won't make it anywhere else. ~~ Eric Hoffer

I love America because America trusts me. When I go into a shop to buy a pair of shoes I am not asked to produce my Identity Card. I love it because my mail is not censored. My phone is not tapped. My conversation with friends is not reported to the secret police. ~~ Janina Atkins [Polish-born student]

America is closer to the year 2000 than anywhere else on earth. ~~ David Frost

What the United States does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is understand others. ~~ Carlos Fuentes

America is not like a blanket -- one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt -- many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread. ~~ Henry M. Jackson

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America. ~~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

I love the United States, but I see here everything is measured by success, by how much money it makes, not the satisfaction to the individual. ~~ Maria Schell

America has not always been kind to its artists and scholars. Somehow the scientists always seem to get the penthouse while the arts and humanities get the basement. ~~ Lyndon B. Johnson

The problem is that Americans would like to be independent of the rest of the world ... Except the world ain't that way. Trying to be independent of the rest of the world is to commit suicide. ~~ Andrew Young

America is so vast that almost everything said about it is likely to be true, and the opposite is probably equally true. ~~ James T. Farell

Perhaps this is our strange and haunting paradox here in America -- that we are fixed and certain only when we are in movement. ~~ Thomas Wolfe

The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children. ~~ Duke of Windsor

Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono. [The life of the land is perpetuated by righteousness.] ~~ Hawaii state motto

To be an American is of itself almost a moral condition, an education, and a career. ~~ George Santayana

The real 1960s began on the afternoon of November 22, 1963....It came to seem that Kennedy's murder opened some malign trap door in American culture, and the wild bats flapped out. ~~ Lance Morrow

There is a need for heroism in American life today. ~~ Agnes Meyer

I don't think it does any harm just once in a while to acknowledge that the whole country isn't in flames, that there are people in the country besides politicians, entertainers, and criminals. ~~ Charles Kuralt

We go forth all to seek America. And in the seeking we create her. In the quality of our search shall be the nature of the America that we created. ~~ Waldo Frank

Loneliness seems to have become the great American disease. ~~ John Corry

[Americans] expect to eat and stay thin, to be constantly on the move and ever more neighborly...to revere God and be God. ~~ Daniel J. Boorstin

Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards -- the things we live by and teach our children -- are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings. ~~ Walt Disney

What the people want is very simple. They want an America as good as its promise. ~~ Barbara Jordan

If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we must live through all time, or die by suicide. ~~ Abraham Lincoln

In order to be able to live in America I must be unafraid to live anywhere in it, and I must be able to live in the fashion and with whom I choose. ~~ Alice Walker