AMERICA QUOTES VI

quotations about America

America quote

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


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

RINGO STARR

attributed, The Mammoth Book of Great British Humor

Tags: Ringo Starr


Except for its worst inner-city slums, America is not the primitive capitalist jungle of European imagination, where human beings slink away like wounded animals to die in bloodstained holes.

TIMOTHY GARTON ASH

Free World: America, Europe, and the Surprising Future of the West

Tags: Timothy Garton Ash


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'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


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

RICHARD NIXON

Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1969

Tags: Richard Nixon


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


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


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


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 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


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


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 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


What Americans should by now be able to see is that neither the laissez-faire marketplace nor strong government has given them a satisfying or permanent resolution. The problem is not the marketplace and it is not government. The problem originates in the contest of clashing values between society and capitalism and, since this human society cannot surrender its deepest values, it must try to alter capitalism's. As we look deeper for the soul of capitalism, we find that, in the terms of ordinary human existence, American capitalism doesn't appear to have one.

WILLIAM GREIDER

The Soul of Capitalism

Tags: society, capitalism


America is a lady rocking on a porch in an unpainted house on an unused road.

ANNE SEXTON

"Sixth Psalm", The Complete Poems

Tags: Anne Sexton


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

LEWIS H. LAPHAM

Money and Class in America


It's an election year, and candidates can't stop speaking about our country's problems (which, of course, only they can solve). As a result of this negative drumbeat, many Americans now believe that their children will not live as well as they themselves do. That view is dead wrong: The babies being born in America today are the luckiest crop in history. American GDP per capita is now about $56,000.... That -- in real terms -- is a staggering six times the amount in 1930, the year I was born, a leap far beyond the wildest dreams of my parents or their contemporaries. U. S. citizens are not intrinsically more intelligent today, nor do they work harder than did Americans in 1930. Rather, they work far more efficiently and thereby produce more. This all-powerful trend is certain to continue: America's economic magic remains alive and well.

WARREN BUFFETT

annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, February 2016

Tags: Warren Buffett