Quotes About America

Simon Wolf wrote during Woodrow Wilson's tenure, "President Grant did more on behalf of American citizens of Jewish faith at home and abroad than all the Presidents of the United States prior thereto or since.

Washington and other founders entertained the fanciful hope that America would be spared the bane of political parties, which they called "factions" and associated with parochial self-interest.

his optimistic view of America's potential coexisted with an essentially pessimistic view of human nature.

While other Americans dreamed of a brand-new society that would expunge all traces of effete European civilization, Hamilton humbly studied those societies for clues to the formation of a new government. Unlike Jefferson, Hamilton never saw the creation of America as a magical leap across a chasm to an entirely new landscape, and he always thought the New World had much to learn from the Old.

The strident tone of "The Stand" reflects the polarization that had gripped America over the French crisis. Feelings ran so high that Jefferson told one correspondent, "Men who have been intimate all their lives cross the street to avoid meeting and turn their heads another way, lest they should be obliged to touch hats.

There is no virtue [in] America. That commerce which preside[d over] the birth and education of these states has [fitted] their inhabitants for the chain and . . . the only condition they sincerely desire is that it may be a golden one.

Would a treaty ratified by Congress trump state law? Could the judiciary override the legislature? And would America function as a true country or a loose federation of states? Hamilton left no doubt that states should bow to a central government: "It must be conceded that the legislature of one state cannot repeal the law of the United States.

If Rutgers v. Waddington made Hamilton a controversial figure in city politics in 1784, the founding of the Bank of New York cast him in a more conciliatory role. The creation of New York's first bank was a formative moment in the city's rise as a world financial center. Banking was still a new phenomenon in America.

Profiting from the Rockefeller tie, the Equitable Trust became within a decade America's eighth-largest bank.

Hamilton dreaded parties as "the most fatal disease" of popular governments and hoped America could dispense with such groups.

It was Rockefeller, after all, who urged Harper to pay top dollar for America's best academic minds.

Washington was then unanimously elected president of the convention.

To believe America able to withstand England is a dreadful infatuation.

Despite the low price of Russian oil, Standard barred it from America and retained nearly 80 percent of world markets in the late 1880s.

coaxed America into war for profit.

Thanks to Washington and Hamilton, the American economy flourished; thanks to Adams, the Quasi-War with France had receded to a memory. Inheriting domestic prosperity and international peace, Jefferson benefited from exceptional good fortune as America settled down for the first time since the Revolution.

In the last analysis, the durable bond formed between Hamilton and Washington during the Revolution was based less on personal intimacy than on shared experiences of danger and despair and common hopes for America's future

By spotlighting the issue of intent, Hamilton identified the criteria for libel that still hold sway in America today: that the writing in question must be false, defamatory, and malicious.

It was the northern economic system that embodied the mix of democracy and capitalism that was to constitute the essence of America in the long run.

On March 4, 1793, George Washington was sworn in for his second term as president

Many countries that Grant visited levied onerous taxes on their subjects to service massive debt and maintain standing armies, giving him a fresh appreciation of republican government in America. "The fact is we are the most progressive, freest and richest people on earth, but don't know it or appreciate it. Foreigners see this much plainer than we do.

betrayed intense sympathy for the Union cause and fervently advocated abolishing slavery. As early as his 1854 high-school essay on freedom, he had railed against "cruel masters" who worked their slaves "beneath the scorching suns of the South. How under such circumstances can America call herself free?

The manifold ways in which they [the victims of 9/11] attached to life testified to the Quranic injunction that the taking of a single life destroys a universe. Al-Qaeda had aimed its attacks at America, but it struck all of humanity.

That's what the movement was all about. It was not to destroy anyone. It was to redeem, to save, to convert. It was to change people's attitudes, their positions, their hearts. That's what Dr. King spoke of—redeeming the soul of America, creating the beloved community.