AMERICA QUOTES
quotations about America
America is not just a country, it's an idea.
BONO
PENN Address, 2004
America, thou half-brother of the world; with something good and bad of every land.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Festus
In America, anyone can become president. That's the problem.
GEORGE CARLIN
standup routine
America is a tune. It must be sung together.
GERALD STANLEY LEE
Crowds
Part of America's genius has always been its ability to absorb newcomers, to forge a national identity out of the disparate lot that arrived on our shores.
BARACK OBAMA
The Audacity of Hope
I'm in love with this country called America. I'm a huge fan of America, I'm one of those annoying fans, you know the ones that read the CD notes and follow you into bathrooms and ask you all kinds of annoying questions about why you didn't live up to that ... I'm that kind of fan. I read the Declaration of Independence and I've read the Constitution of the United States, and they are some liner notes, dude.
BONO
PENN Address, 2004
America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way round. Human rights invented America.
JIMMY CARTER
Farewell Address, Jan. 14, 1981
Oh America, how often have you taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. If you are to be a truly Christian nation you must solve this problem. You cannot solve the problem by turning to communism, for communism is based on an ethical relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can accept. You can work within the framework of democracy to bring about a better distribution of wealth. You can use your powerful economic resources to wipe poverty from the face of the earth. God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty. God intends for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
sermon delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, Nov. 4, 1956
We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence.... Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that she will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations. Such is the logic of patriotism.
EMMA GOLDMAN
speech, "What Is Patriotism?", 1908
In America you can say anything you want -- as long as it doesn't have any effect.
PAUL GOODMAN
Social Anarchism, 1986
America was founded by people who believed that God was their rock of safety. He is ours. I recognize we must be cautious in claiming that God is on our side, but I think it's all right to keep asking if we're on His side.
RONALD REAGAN
State of the Union Address, Jan. 25, 1984
God bless America,
Land that I love,
Stand beside her and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains to the prairies,
To the oceans white with foam,
God bless America,
My home sweet home.
IRVING BERLIN
"God Bless America"
So, then, to every man his chance--to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity--to every man the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him--this, seeker, is the promise of America.
THOMAS WOLFE
You Can't Go Home Again
For more than two generations, my family had never achieved their ambitions. Their talents were unappreciated and unused. They deserved better. They hadn't done anything wrong; they just had some bad breaks. Why was I succeeding? Why was I living my dreams? I wasn't more deserving than they were. I wasn't smarter or a better person. What was the difference between us that allowed me to attain so much in a short time? America. America was the difference. I had been born a citizen of the greatest nation in all of human history.
MARCO RUBIO
An American Son
In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes we can.
BARACK OBAMA
remarks after New Hampshire Primary loss, Jan. 8, 2008
You know what made us the biggest, meanest, Big Mac eating, calorie-counting, world-dominating kick-ass powerhouse country in the history of the human race? The pursuit of happiness. Not happiness. The pursuit.
WILL FERGUSON
Happiness
It is the immigrant hordes who keep this country alive, the waves of them arriving year after year.... Who believes in America more than the people who run down the gangplank and kiss the ground?
E. L. DOCTOROW
Homer & Langley
I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.
MUHAMMAD ALI
attributed, Muhammad Ali: The People's Champion
America did not tell the millions of men and women who came from every country in the world and who--with their hands, their intelligence and their heart--built the greatest nation in the world: "Come, and everything will be given to you." She said: "Come, and the only limits to what you'll be able to achieve will be your own courage and your own talent."
NICOLAS SARKOZY
address to joint session of Congress, Nov. 7, 2007
There is nothing wrong in America that can't be fixed with what is right in America.
BILL CLINTON
First Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1992