Quotes About American

For two decades, beginning in the early eighteen-seventies, the very thought of an income tax did not enter the American mind, apart from rare occasions when some Populist or Socialist agitator would propose the establishment of such a tax designed specifically to soak the urban rich.

Most nineteenth-century American fortunes were enlarged by, if they were not actually founded on, the practice of insider trading,

Oddly, almost no one seems to have expressed gratitude to the British and American banks, which recouped something like half of their losses. It may be that people simply don't thank banks, except in television commercials.

IN the calendar of American economic life, 1955 was the Year of the Automobile. That year, American automobile makers sold over seven million passenger cars, or over a million more than they had sold in any previous year. That year, General Motors easily sold the public $325 million worth of new common stock, and the stock market as a whole, led by the motors, gyrated upward so frantically that Congress investigated it.

To be frank, nothing has changed since The Quiet American—when we finally destroy the whole world it will be with the very best of intentions.

I may be a criminal lunatic, but I'm an AMERICAN criminal lunatic!

Gil said to Elfine, "I cannot make you an American if that is what you are asking. There is an ordeal all must pass. A trial by paperwork and years of waiting.

were a purely biological matter." He relates also how a nurse at the George Washington Hospital attempted to excite him by detailing the characteristics she desired her lovers to have. He draws a disapproving picture of the American woman's seductive appearance ("thirsty lips…bulging breasts…smooth legs…") and flirtatious demeanour ("the calling eye…the provocative laugh…").

What could be more American, after all, than being an immigrant and then, after a few decades, fearing immigration and reacting against it?

The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.

But among the great road trips of American history--from Lewis and Clark to Alexis de Tocqueville to Jack Kerouac-- it hardly rates a mention.

If Obamacare is allowed to stand - and Congress is allowed to make the purchase of government-endorsed health insurance compulsory - there will be no meaningful limit on Washington's reach into the lives of the American people. That is certainly not what the Founders intended.

Nearly 60 percent of the American economy is tied up in foreign trade, which means millions of U.S. jobs and families are linked to the undulations of the global market.31

For me, the American promise isn't just an idea or a theory - it's my life story.

Without God, there would be no American form of Government, nor an American way of life.

And I've been incredibly lucky to have a long career in journalism that has given me a front-row seat to some of the most important moments in modern American political life.

Entrepreneurship is a life idea, not a strictly business one; a global idea, not a strictly American one.

Envy is the central fact of American life.

Freedom. Freedom of religion. Freedom to speak their mind. Freedom to build a life. And yes, freedom to build a business. With their own hands. This is the essence of the American experience.

I drive Fords, and I've driven American cars all my life, and I want to have a strong American manufacturing sector, especially in automobiles.

I think the novel is the American form because people read it in private, and the only valuable things that happen in America happen in private life, because public life is a dead loss.

One of the most constant aspects of American life is change - and nowhere is it more evident than in our financial markets.

I live my life by the numbers. Not only am I an American, I am an Americanist.

I know in an existential sense that life can change on a dime ... something has instantly and inexorably changed in American life.