Quotes About America

America is the original version of modernity. We are the dubbed or subtitled version. America ducks the question of origins; it cultivates no origin or mythical authenticity; it has no past and no founding truth. Having known no primitive accumulation of time, it lives in a perpetual present.

Let's face it, Thoreau; you can't live in America today and be quietly different. If you are going to be different, you are going to stand out, and people are going to hear about you; and in your case, if they hear about you, they will remove you to the city or move to you and you won't be different anymore.

cantonment in the United States, and was considered

I think that it's always appropriate for Americans and for American foreign policy to make clear why we feel that self-government is most compatible with peace, the well-being of people, and human dignity.

Their legacy to America was immense, and the social sciences and humanities as well as the fine arts, music and drama would be unimaginable today without the contribution of these émigrés.

In every society there are inequities, and in America the most obvious of these affect people of color and the poor. Demagogues recruit by uniting a disenchanted element against an enemy, then promising to use religion or politics or a combination of the two to bring about rightful change.

That's religion in America, under constant revision.

There was something strange about this country of America, something that they all seemed to share and understand and she did not.

The continent did not appeal: France was filled with irritating people; Spain was corrupt and unstable; Russia, impossible; Italy, absurd; Germany, rigid; Portugal, in decline. Holland, thought favorably disposed toward him, was dull. The United States of America, he decided, was a possibility.

The oppression and exploitation of Latinos (like Asians) have historical roots unknown to most Americans. People who learn at least a little about Black slavery remain totally ignorant about how the United States seized half of Mexico or how it has colonized Puerto Rico.

the rich and powerful are always taken care of. This corruption is turning government into a tool of those who have already gathered wealth and influence. This corruption is hollowing out America's middle class and tearing down our democracy. In

Think tanks support so-called experts who will offer an opinion on anything—if the price is right. The result is that the rich and powerful flourish, while everyone else is left further and further behind. The cumulative impact of decades of these decisions has been to hollow out America's middle class and to leave us, as a nation, weakened. The game is rigged. It is deliberately, persistently, and aggressively rigged to help the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful.

we also need to understand how and why our country has gone so thoroughly wrong. We need a plan to put us back on track—and then we need to get to work and make it happen. We need to live our values, to be the kind of nation that invests in opportunity, not just for some of us, but for all of us. We need to take our democracy back from those who would pervert it for their own benefit. We need to build the America of our best dreams.

At first, I was shocked that Diane could even suggest this family reunion [on television], and then I realized this is just the way of the world, or at least the way of fin de siecle America. Not only would the next revolution be televised, but so would every other little stupid thing. It was already happening: Television reunions between adopted children and their birth parents...

In other words, the idea that there was, in 1980s America, more and more of a level playing field in housing, educational resources, and employment opportunities was a myth.

the election of Obama showed that America had moved beyond 'race' into a definitively post-racial era in which now even a black American could be president. The

Science and democracy grew up together in Europe and North America, as twins; it is no coincidence that so many of America's Founding Fathers were science geeks.

am American bred, I have seen much to hate here--much to forgive, But in a world where England is finished and dead, I do not wish to live.

The following is a narrative poem. It became a huge success at the time of its publication, and inspired the 1944 movie The White Cliffs of Dover. It is about an American girl who visits London just before the First World War, marries, and stays in England during the succeeding years, including the start of the Second World War.

Was this America--this my home Prohibition and Teapot Dome-- Speakeasies, night clubs, illicit stills, Dark faces peering behind dark grills, Hold-ups, kidnappings, hootch or booze-- Everyone gambling--you just can't lose, Was this my country?

The regime established here [in the U.S.] promised untrammeled freedom to reasonnot to everything indiscriminately, but to reason, the essential freedom that justifies the other freedoms, and on the basis of which, and for the sake of which, much deviance is also tolerated. An openness that denies the special claim of reason bursts the mainspring keeping the mechanism of this regime in motion.

We're in America; why do I have to "Press 1" for English?

Now at last we could gauge the range of the American Dirty Mind—and estimate the unfathomable depth of loneliness in America.

America free Tom MooneyAmerica save the Spanish LoyalistsAmerica Sacco & Vanzetti must not dieAmerica I am the Scottsboro boys.