Quotes About American

The department stores also imposed a new, very American kind of democracy, in which everyone was equal as long as they had the money to pay. (Marshall Field instructed his clerks to call all customers "ladies," no matter what their dress or manners.) Even poor women enjoyed the stores' big, carefully decorated windows, with displays that changed regularly.

Americans love the story of the immigrant who comes through Ellis Island with no possessions but struggles to success and happiness. It is the story that most defines us, and we tell it to ourselves over and over. But for the real immigrants, each story was different, and the happiness of the ending changed with every telling.

When I see those big labels, 'American,' I know someone is selling something. I get very uncomfortable with any kind of chauvinism—male, French or American."7

The United States Constitution turned 225 years old in 2012. It is the central document of American history and politics. From all sides of the political spectrum, from ranks of society low and high, it is ceaselessly venerated, admired, and invoked. But all too seldom is it read. It sometimes seems that Americans worship the Constitution so deeply that they find its actual text a distraction.

Though Article II requires "natural born" citizenship, the Constitution does not explain what the phrase means. There was no constitutional definition of American citizenship until 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. Nor was there any existing body of American immigration law to explain it.

I think the most un-American thing you can say is "You can't say that."

T]he American fanatic has always suffered moral disorientation at the mere thought of anyone 'getting something for nothing'.

So much, it would seem, for the music that would eventually be regarded as the first truly American art form.

I understand that in these difficult economic times, the potential for any additional expense is not welcomed by American businesses. But in the long run, the health insurance reform law promises to cut health-care costs for U.S. businesses, not expand them.

Daniel K. Inouye, who lost an arm fighting with the 442nd Regiment in Europe, became the first American of Japanese ancestry to win a seat in the House. Inouye

American—a child not of old borders and ancient alliances, but of ideals and liberty.

As an ambassador and an American, Jefferson recognized it was a fear no citizen of a free nation embarking on an oceanic voyage should have to endure.

MERCHANTS' SHIRTSLEEVES While his name was being bandied around New York's most exclusive circles during his first weeks of command, Arnold was quite busy sending letters. Besides writing to Washington about his desire to increase the provisions and make improvements at the fort and composing letters about his need to learn the identity of spies, Arnold also found the time to send a letter to an American outpost, informing its members that a certain

All Americans owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to George Washington's secret six.

A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett, of the State of Tennessee (1834).

BETRAYAL IN BOOTS On that same morning of September 23, three American militiamen, John Paulding, Isaac Van Wart, and David Williams, were guarding the road in a kind of no-man's-land en route to the city.

There hasn't been a war fought on American soil in more than 145 years. We've been distanced, protected, and made safe from the fear and horrors of war, especially from the possibility of having one in our own backyard...In the United States, we have helped support and create a government and a media machine that puts us in a bubble, reinforces a xenophobic view of the world, and puts all of our troubles "out of sight and out of mind.

Because this is another thing your average American man in crisis does: he tries to go home, forgetting, momentarily, that he is the reason he left home in the first place, that the home is not his anymore, and that the crisis is him.

Being an American is a spectator sport.

If there is a trait embedded even more deeply in the mainstream American character than the pursuit of money, it is fear of the Other.

The most important of these activists was Jimmy Garrett, a member of both the Black Panthers and SNCC. Garrett led discussion groups at which, as he later explained, "we would talk about ourselves seeking identity, and stuff like that. A lot of folks didn't even know they were black. A lot of people thought they were Americans".

There is a rowdy strain in American life, living close to the surface but running very deep. Like an ape behind a mask, it can display itself suddenly with terrifying effect. It is slack-jawed, with leering eyes and loose wet lips, with heavy feet and ponderous cunning hands; now and then, when something tickles it, it guffaws, and when it is made angry it snarls; and it can be aroused much more easily than it can be quieted. Mike

American trade represented one third of the British economy).

It was this war and not World War II which established a far-flung American base structure abroad and a national security state at home, as defence spending nearly quadrupled in the last six months of 1950, and turned the United States into the policeman of the world.