Americans Quotes

Americans, who make more of marrying for love than any other people, also break up more of their marriages, but the figure reflects not so much the failure of love as the determination of people not to live without it.

There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.

In America, they make a lot of fuss over little things.

America... an economic system prouder of the distribution of its products than of the products themselves.

Throughout human history, countries rise and fall. But not America--we continue to rise and rise, like dough, until Jesus bakes us in the fiery Afterscape of the Rapture.

And this is good old Boston The home of the bean and the cod - Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots And the Cabots talk only to God.

Ours is the country where in order to sell your product you don't so much point out its merits as you first work like hell to sell yourself.

Americans care more about the rights of animals than about what happens to us!

Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.

They were our enemies. Yet in those young men of Italy I'd seen something centuries old. An American is only as old as his years. A long line of something was hidden behind the bright eyes of those Italians. And then and there I decided to learn something of the modern world. There was something abroad which we Americans couldn't or wouldn't understand. But unless we made some attempt to realize that everyone in the world isn't American, and that not everything American is good, we'll all perish together, and in this twentieth century....

A single word indicative of doubt, that any thing, or every thing, in that country is not the very best in the world, produces an effect which must be seen and felt to be understood. If the citizens of the United States were indeed the devoted patriots they call themselves, they would surely not thus encrust themselves in the hard, dry, stubborn persuasion, that they are the first and best of the human race, that nothing is to be learnt, but what they are able to teach, and that nothing is worth having, which they do not possess.

Prolific irony - For 8 years, the finger on the button that could end the world belonged to a president who couldn't pronounce the word "nuclear.

So why don’t Americans cheat? Because they think that their system is legitimate. People accept authority when they see that it treats everyone equally, when it is possible to speak up and be heard, and when there are rules in place that assure you that tomorrow you won’t be treated radically different from how you are treated today. Legitimacy is based on fairness, voice and predictability, and the U.S. government, as much as Americans like to grumble about it, does a pretty good job of meeting all three standards. Pg. 293

Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf.

Americans live not by facts, but by a lengthy list of myths.

They never said “I don’t know.” They said, instead, “I’m not sure,” which did not give any information but still suggested the possibility of knowledge.

Americans have a special horror of letting things happen their own way without interference. They would like to jump down their stomachs digest the food and shovel the shit out.

In the old Republican days the subject of slavery and of the saving of the Union made appeals to the consciences and liberty-loving instincts of the people. These later years have been full of talk about commerce and dinner pails, but I feel sure that the American conscience and the American love of liberty have not been smothered. They will break through this crust of sordidness and realize that those only keep their liberties who accord liberty to others.

You can always get the truth from an American statesman after he has turned 70 or given up all hope of the Presidency.

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

Being an American is about having the right to be who you are. Sometimes that doesn't happen.

The true America is the Middle West and Columbus discovered nothing at all except another Europe.

Many Americans first fell in love with the poetry of the thirteenth century teacher and spiritual leader Jelalludin Rumi during the early 1990s when the unparalleled lyrical grace, philosophical brilliance, and spiritual daring of his work took modern Western readers completely by surprise. The impact of its soulful beauty and the depth of its profound humanity were so intense that they reportedly prompted numerous individuals to spontaneously compose poetry.

Delaware: a state that has three counties when the tide is out and two when it is in.

Where humanitysowed faith, hope, and unity, joy’s garden blossomed.

I don't care what you Yanks say, cheese should not whiz.

In any event, the sloppy and fatuous nature of American good will can never be relied upon to deal with hard problems. These have been dealt with, when they have been dealt with at all, out of necessity—and in political terms, anyway, necessity means concessions made in order to stay on top.

The Englishman is under no constitutional obligation to believe that all men are created equal. The American agony is therefore scarcely intelligible like a saint's self-flagellation viewed by an atheist.

What is the difference? Tell me what is the difference between you and me. We both kill for what we want," the man asks."We lived here first.

I had always been warned that American didn't always get sarcasm

You know, if you're an American and you're born at this time in history especially, you're lucky. We all are. We won the world history Powerball lottery.

It’s a funny thing to complain about, but most of America is perfectly devoid of smells. I must have noticed it before, but this last time back I felt it as an impairment. For weeks after we arrived I kept rubbing my eyes, thinking I was losing my sight or maybe my hearing. But it was the sense of smell that was gone. Even in the grocery store, surrounded in one aisle by more kinds of food than will ever be known in a Congolese lifetime, there was nothing on the air but a vague, disinfected emptiness. I mentioned this to Anatole, who’d long since taken note of it, of course. “The air is just blank in America,” I said. “You can’t ever smell what’s around you, unless you stick your nose right down into something."“Maybe that is why they don’t know about Mobutu,” he suggested.

What constitutes an American? Not color nor race nor religion. Not the pedigree of his family nor the place of his birth. Not the coincidence of his citizenship. Not his social status nor his bank account. Not his trade nor his profession. An American is one who loves justice and believes in the dignity of man. An American is one who will fight for his freedom and that of his neighbor. An American is one who will sacrifice property, ease and security in order that he and his children may retain the rights of free men. An American is one in whose heart is engraved the immortal second sentence of the Declaration of Independence.

As for what you're calling hard luck - well we made New England out of it. That and codfish.

Thou oh my country hast thy foolish ways Too apt to purr at every stranger's praise.

Alexa, and the other guests, and perhaps even Georgina, all understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls, but they would not understand the need to escape from the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness.

I believe our clever young man has intuited that while only the pursuit of happiness is promised to all Americans, unhappiness is guaranteed for many.

(A country where) the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.

It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination against other religious, racial or economic groups.