America

Explore 87 quotes about America

Let us have done with British-Americans and Irish-Americans and German-Americans, and so on, and all be Americans... If a man is going to be an American at all let him be so without any qualifying adjectives; and if he is going to be something else, let him drop the word American from his personal description.

Henry Cabot Lodge

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Topic

Assimilation America

Speaker

Henry Cabot Lodge

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1888 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Lodge, Henry Cabot. "The Day We Celebrate." New England Society of Brooklyn meeting. 21 Dec. 1888, Brooklyn, New York City, NY, USA.

Hey, guys, one more thing, hey, this summer, when you're being inundated with all this American bicentennial Fourth Of July brouhaha, don’t forget what you’re celebrating, and that’s the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic, white males didn’t want to pay their taxes.

Dazed and Confused

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Topic

American founding America

Speaker

Ms. Stroud

Actor

Kim Krizan

Source

Dazed and Confused

Medium

Film

Genre

Coming of age (film) Comedy (film) Coming of age Comedy

Language

English

Time

1993 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Dazed and Confused. Directed by Richard Linklater, Detour Filmproduction/Alphaville Films, 1993.

Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.

J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

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Topic

Melting pot America

Author

J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

Source

Letters from an American Farmer

Language

English

Time

1782 1780s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Crevecoeur, Michel Guillaume Jean [published as J. Hector St. John]. "What Is an American?" Letters from an American Farmer. London: Davies & Davies, 1782.

Current Citation

Crevecoeur, J. Hector St. John. "Letters From an American Farmer." Letters From an American Farmer and Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America, edited by Albert E. Stone. Penguin Classics, 1981.

Freedom of thought and the right of private judgment, in matters of conscience, driven from every other corner of the earth, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum.

Samuel Adams

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Topic

America Freedom of thought

Author

Samuel Adams

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1776 1770s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Adams, Samuel. "American Independence." 1 Aug. 1776, State House, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Speech.

We have the heaviest concentration of lawyers on Earth-1 for every 500 Americans, three times as many as are in England, four times as many as are in West Germany, twenty-one times as many as are in West Germany, twenty-one times as many as there are in Japan. We have more litigation, but I am not sure that we have more justice. No resources of talent and training in our own society, even including the medical care, is more wastefully or unfairly distributed than legal skills. Ninety percent of our lawyer serves 10 percent of our people. We are over-lawyered and under-represented.

Jimmy Carter

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Topic

Lawyers America

Speaker

Jimmy Carter

Language

English

Time

1978 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Carter, Jimmy. Remarks at the 100th Anniversary Luncheon of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. 100th Anniversary Luncheon of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. 4 May 1978, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

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

Edward VIII

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Topic

America

Speaker

Edward VIII

Source

Look Magazine

Medium

Magazine

Language

English

Time

1957 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Edward VIII. "Edward VIII, Afterwards Duke of Windsor." Look Magazine, 5 Mar. 1957.

I believe that we are lost here in America, but I believe we shall be found.

Thomas Wolfe

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Topic

America

Author

Thomas Wolfe

Source

You Can't Go Home Again

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1938 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Wolfe, Thomas. You Can't Go Home Again. Harper & Row, 1940, ch. 48.

I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people, whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect Union, one and inseparable, established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes. I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.

William Tyler Page

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Topic

America

Author

William Tyler Page

Language

English

Time

1917 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Page, William Tyler. "The American's Creed." House of Representatives meeting. 3 Apr. 1918, US Capitol Building, Washington, DC, USA. Originally, a submission to a nationwide patriotic contest. c. 1917.

The weakness of American civilization, and perhaps the chief reason why it creates so much discontent, is that it is so curiously abstract. It is a bloodless extrapolation of a satisfying life... You dine off the advertiser's "sizzling" and not the meat of the steak.

J.B. Priestley

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Topic

Criticism of America America

Author

J.B. Priestley

Source

New Statesman

Medium

Magazine

Language

English

Time

1971 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Priestley, J. B. New Statesman. 10 Dec. 1971.

I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse,
I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
You may bury my tongue at Champmédy.
I shall not be there, I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.

Stephen Vincent Benét

American Names

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Topic

America

Author

Stephen Vincent Benét

Source

American Names

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1927 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Benét, Stephen Vincent. "American Names." Yale Review, Oct. 1927.

I have fallen in love with American names,
The sharp, gaunt names that never get fat,
The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,
The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,
Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.

Stephen Vincent Benét

American Names

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More information about this quote

Topic

America

Author

Stephen Vincent Benét

Source

American Names

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1927 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Benét, Stephen Vincent. "American Names." Yale Review, Oct. 1927.

America was discovered accidentally by a great seaman who was looking for something else; when discovered it was not wanted; and most of the exploration for the next fifty years was done in the hope of getting through or around it. America was named after a man who discovered no part of the New World. History is like that, very chancy.

Samuel Eliot Morison

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Topic

America Nature of history

Author

Samuel Eliot Morison

Source

The Oxford History of the American People

Genre

Historical literature

Language

English

Time

1965 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Oxford History of the American People. Oxford University Press, 1965, ch. 2.

There are, at the present time, two great nations in the world, which seem to tend towards the same end, although they started from different points; I allude to the Russians and the Americans... Their starting point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Democracy in America

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Topic

Russia America

Author

Alexis de Tocqueville

Source

Democracy in America

Genre

Political literature

Language

French

Time

1840 1840s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Tocqueville, Alexis De. De La Democratie en Amerique [Democracy in America]. Vol. 1, London: Saunders and Otley, 1835, conclusion.

Current Citation

Tocqueville, Alexis De. Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II, translated by Henry Reeve. Bantam Classics, 2000, vol. 1, conclusion.

It is a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical arsenal of old Europe.

G.W.F. Hegel

On America.

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Topic

America America and Europe

Author

G.W.F. Hegel

Source

Lectures on the Philosophy of Wold History: Introduction

Medium

Lecture

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

German

Time

1830 1830s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Hegel, G. W. F. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte [Lectures on the Philosophy of World History]. c. 1830, University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany.

Current Citation

Hegel, G. W. F. Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, translated by H. B. Nisbet. Cambridge University Press, 1981.

This is a beautiful country.

John Brown

John Brown's last words before his execution.

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Topic

America

Speaker

John Brown

Statement Type

Last words

Language

English

Time

1859 1850s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Brown, John. Last written words. 2 Dec. 1859.

Some sense of religious mission is part of being American.

John Updike

Quoted in The New York Review of Books

More information about this quote

Topic

American character America

Speaker

John Updike

Source

The New York Review of Books

Medium

Interview Magazine

Language

English

Time

1996 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Updike, John. Quoted in "God's Country" by Michael Wood. New York Book Review, 29 Feb. 1996.

I say violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America's culture. It is as American as cherry pie.

H. Rap Brown

More information about this quote

Topic

Violence in America America

Speaker

H. Rap Brown

Medium

News conference

Language

English

Time

1967 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Brown, H. Rap. News conference. 27 July 1967, Washington, DC, USA.

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Read The Building of the Ship at Poetry Foundation

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Topic

American experiment America

Author

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Source

The Building of the Ship The Seaside and the Fireside

Medium

Poem

Statement Type

Metaphor, analogy and simile

Language

English

Time

1850 1850s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. "The Building of the Ship." The Seaside and the Fireside. Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1850, I. 377.

Current Citation

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. "The Building of the Ship." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Poems & Other Writings, edited by J. D. McClatchy. Library of America, 2000, I. 377.

America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy.

John Updike

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Topic

America

Author

John Updike

Medium

Short story

Language

English

Time

1972 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Updike, John. "How to Love America and Leave It at the Same Time." The New Yorker, 19 Aug. 1972.

Current Citation

Updike, John. "How to Love America and Leave It at the Same Time." Problems and Other Stories. Knopf, 1979.

You cannot conquer America.

William Pitt, Earl of Chatham

More information about this quote

Topic

America

Speaker

William Pitt, Earl of Chatham

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1777 1770s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Pitt, William. Speech responding to a speech by Henry Howard who spoke in favour of the war against the American colonists. House of Lords meeting. 18 Nov. 1777, Palace of Westminster, London, England, UK.