AMERICA

Related Subjects: Constitution, Democracy, History, Patriotism

1. If we learn to think in terms of the duties which we freely owe to the great society which we in America are building, and also learn to revaluate our lives in terms of what a standard of living is in the fullest, and not merely a material scale of values, then the American Dream may yet come true in a free democracy.—JAMES TRUSLOW ADAMS, The Record of America

2. Driven from every other corner of the earth, freedom of thought and the right of private judgment in matters of conscience direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum.SAMUEL ADAMS

3. Three thousand miles of borderline,—nor fort nor armed host
   On all this frontier neighbor-ground from east to western coast;
   A spectacle to conjure with—a thought to stir the blood!
   A living proof to all the world of faith in brotherhood.—Anonymous, Our Borderline

4. America, half-brother of the world! With something good and bad of every land.—PHILIP J. BAILEY, Festus

5. America! America!
   God shed His grace on thee,
   And crown thy good with brotherhood
   From sea to shining sea!—KATHARINE LEE BATES, America the Beautiful

6. You can be a Finn or a Dane and an American.
   You can be German or French and an American,
   Jew, Bohunk, Nigger, Mick—all the dirty names
   We call each other—and yet American.—STEPHEN VINCENT BENET, Nightmare at Noon

7. Oh yes, I know the faults and the other side,
   The lyncher's rope, the bought justice, the wasted land,
   The scale on the leaf, the borers in the corn,
   The finks with their clubs, the gray sky of relief,
   All the long shame of our hearts and the long disunion.
   I am merely remarking—as a country we try.
   As a country, I think we try.—STEPHEN VINCENT BENET, Nightmare at Noon

8. I have fallen in love with American names,
   The sharp names that never get fat,
   The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,
   The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,
   Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.—STEPHEN VINCENT BENET, American Names

9. I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse
   I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
   You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
   You may bury my tongue at Champmedy.
   I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass,
   Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.—STEPHEN VINCENT BENET, American Names

10. God Bless America!—Title of popular song by IRVING BERLIN

11. As a matter of fact, very few of us correctly understand what we mean by this "Americanism" and "Americanization" that we have become so wrought up about. We think of Americanism as something we can imbibe, understand and practice in our lives only if we are born in the United States of America. . . . Americanism is not alone a matter of birth or ancestry. The real America is an ideal—a vision yet to be fulfilled.—EDWARD Bok, The Americanization of Edward Bok

12. To be "one hundred per cent American" a man must be one hundred per cent Christian. He must always and everywhere observe the Golden Rule. He must put in practice the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount. In all sacred and profane history there never lived but one Man who could qualify as a hundred percent American; and men who deny or abridge the rights of others for religion or race should remember that that Man was a Jew!—EDWARD BOK, The Americanization of Edward Bok

13. Our government, conceived in freedom and purchased with blood, can be preserved only by constant vigilance. May we guard it as our children's richest legacy, for what shall it profit our nation if it shall gain the whole world and lose "the spirit that prizes liberty as the heritage of all men in all lands everywhere?"—WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN

14. Here the free spirit of mankind, at length,
    Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place
    A limit to the giant's unchained strength,
    Or curb his swiftness in the for­ward race?—BRYANT, The Ages

15. Young man, there is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners, yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world.—BURKE, Speech on Conciliation

16. I never use the word "Nation" in speaking of the United States; I always use the word "Union," or "Confederacy." We are not a Nation, but a Union, a confederacy of equal and sovereign States.—JOHN C. CALHOUN

17. There was a state without king or nobles; there was a church without a bishop ; there was a people governed by grave magistrates which it had selected, and by equal laws which it had framed.—RUFUS CHOATE

18. Our country! in her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong!—COMMODORE STEPHEN DECATUR

19. The United States of America—the greatest potential force, material, moral, and spiritual, in the world.—G. LOWES DICKINSON, The Choice Before Us

20. U. S. A. is the slice of a continent. U. S. A. is a group of holding companies, some aggregations of trade unions, a set of laws bound in calf, a radio network, a chain of moving picture theatres, a column of stock-quotations rubbed out and written by a Western Union boy on a blackboard, a public library full of old newspapers and dog-eared history books with protests scrawled on the margins in pencil. U. S. A. is the world's greatest river valley fringed with mountains and hills, U. S. A. is a set of big-mouthed officials with too many bank-accounts, U. S. A. is a lot of men buried in their uniforms in Arlington Cemetery, U. S. A. is the letters at the end of an address when you are away from home. But mostly U. S. A. is the speech of the people.—JOHN DOS PASSOS, U. S. A.

21. We in America produce 92 per cent of the world's natural gas, not counting the speeches of Senators and Congressmen on Saving Democracy.—THEODORE DREISER

22. America means opportunity, freedom, power.—EMERSON, Lectures

23. American life storms about us daily, and is slow to find a tongue.—EMERSON, Letters and Social Aims

24. America is a country of young men.—EMERSON, Society and Solitude

25. Our country has liberty without license and authority without despotism.—CARDINAL GIBBONS

26. They love their land because it is their own,
    And scorn to give aught other reason why;
    Would shake hands with a king upon his throne,
    And think it kindness to his Majesty.—FITZ-GREENE HALLECK, Connecticut

27. Private journalists, essayists, political philosophers are equally at cross-purposes. They produce tor­rents of tracts and orations on the American way, the American dream, the American mission, the American destiny. They prove principally—by their conflicts of views—that we are in much doubt today as to what Americanism is.—WILLIAM HARD

28. I am an American. I am conceited enough to think that no better American lives than myself. Equally am I convinced that I am the better American because I am Irish, and the better Irishman, because I am an American.—CARDINAL HAYES

29. An unprotected and feebly defended America should be as unthinkable and undesirable as a military and overarmed America.—CARDINAL HAYES

30. America is the only place where man is full grown!—O. W. HOLMES, The Professor at the Breakfast Table

31. I do not know beneath what sky
    Nor on what seas shall be thy fate;
    I only know it shall be high,
    I only know it shall be great.—RICHARD HOVEY, Unmanifest Destiny

32. We shall maintain our constitutional guarantees only so long as they embody the American spirit. The fundamental need is not satisfied by the fundamental law, but only by a tenacious grasp of the fundamental principles which are back of that law—the principles of liberty to be respected, illustrated and applied by law.—CHARLES EVANS HUGHES

33. It's a complex fate, being an American, and one of the responsibilities it entails is fighting against a superstitious valuation of Europe.—HENRY JAMES

34. While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire, and protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens.—ROBINSON JEFFERS, Shine, Perishing Republic

35. Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations,—entangling alliances with none.—JEFFERSON

36. The less we have to do with the enmities of Europe the better. Not in our day, but at no distant one, we may shake a rod over the heads of all, which may make the stoutest tremble. But I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be.—JEFFERSON

37. I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.—SAMUEL JOHNSON, Boswell: Life

38. It is notable that the tendency to strong presidents coincides with epochs of difficulty in the United States; it is notable, also, that strong presidents have come with greater frequency in more recent times than in early American history.—HAROLD J. LASKI, The American Presidency

39. Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country.—SINCLAIR LEWIS

40. I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was, that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere separation of the colonies from the Motherland—but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all—and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence.—LINCOLN

41. Let every man honor and love the land of his birth and the race from which he springs and keep their memory green. It is a pious and honorable duty. But let us have done with British-Americans and Irish-Americans and German-Americans, and so on, and all be Americans.—HENRY CABOT LODGE

42. If a man is going to be an American at all let him be so without any qualifying adjectives; and if he is going to be something else, let him drop the word American from his personal description.—HENRY CABOT LODGE

43. Of "Americanism" of the right sort we cannot have too much. Mere vaporing and boasting become a nation as little as a man. But honest, outspoken pride and faith in our country are infinitely better and more to be respected than the cultivated reserve which sets it down as ill-bred and in bad taste ever to refer to our country except by way of deprecation, criticism, or general negation.—HENRY CABOT LODGE

44. Sail on, O Ship of State!
    Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
    Humanity with all its fears,
    With all the hopes of future years,
    Is hanging breathless on thy fate.—LONGFELLOW, The Building of the Ship

45. No, America needs no instruction in the things that concern democracy. But instruction is one thing—and another is memory, reflection, re-examination, the recall to consciousness of a spiritual and moral possession of which it would be dangerous to feel too secure and too confident. No worthwhile possession can be neglected.—THOMAS MANN, The Coming Victory of Democracy

46. In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defence.—JAMES MONROE

47. We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those [European] powers, to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere, as dangerous to our peace and safety.—JAMES MONROE

48. The American continents . . . are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.—JAMES MONROE

49. The American nation is a creative vision sane with straight-lined ideas. When I talk with men of the United States it does not occur to me to use diplomacy for winning or persuading them. The American spirit is crystalline. One has to know how to take her and possibly win her over with a watchful responsiveness rather than with cunning words.—MUSSOLINI, Autobiography

50. I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign nation of many sovereign states; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes. I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag and to defend it against all enemies.—WILLIAM TYLER PAGE, The American's Creed

51. Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them.—THOMAS PAINE, The American Crisis

52. You cannot conquer America.—WILLIAM PITT

53. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country I never would lay down my arms,—never! never! never!—WILLIAM PITT

54. The United States never lost a war or won a conference.—WILL ROGERS

55. For more than three centuries we have been building on this continent a free society, a society in which the promise of the human spirit may find fulfillment. Commingled here are the blood and genius of all the peoples of the world who have sought this promise.—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, Fireside Chat, May 26, 1940

56. I, too, pray for peace—that the ways of aggression and force may be banished from the earth—but I am determined to face the fact realistically that this nation requires a toughness of moral and physical fibre. Those qualities, I am convinced, the American people hold to a high degree.—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, Message to Congress, May 16, 1940

57. It will never be possible for any length of time for any group of the American people, either by reason of wealth or learning or inheritance or economic power, to retain any mandate, any permanent authority to arrogate to itself the political control of American public life.—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, Address, Little Rock, June 10, 1936

58. Every American takes pride in our tradition of hospitality to men of all races and all creeds. We must be constantly vigilant against the attacks of intolerance and injustice. We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

59. There is a homely adage which runs, "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." If the American nation will speak softly and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far.—THEODORE ROOSEVELT

60. I care nothing for a man's creed or his birthplace, or descent—but I regard him as an unworthy citizen unless he is an American and nothing else.—THEODORE ROOSEVELT

61. O prairie mother, I am one of your boys. I have loved the prairie as a man with a heart shot full of pain over love.—CARL SANDBURG, Prairie

62. The American people never carry an umbrella. They prepare to walk in eternal sunshine.—ALFRED E. SMITH

63. For a steady self-esteem and indomitable confidence in our own courage, greatness, magnanimity, who can compare with Britons, except their children across the Atlantic?—THACKERAY, The Virginians

64. A nation of 130,000,000 people does not give up supinely what five generations of its ancestors have maintained—a free Atlantic and a free Pacific.—DOROTHY THOMPSON, On the Record

65. The United States is not a nation of people which in the long run allows itself to be pushed around.—DOROTHY THOMPSON, On the Record

66. Picture to yourself, my dear friend, if you can, a society which comprises all the nations of the world—English, French, German: people differing from one another in language, in beliefs, in opinions; in a word, a society possessing no roots, no memories, no prejudices, no routine, no common ideas, no national character, yet with a happiness a hundred times greater than our own. . . . What is the connecting link between these so different elements? How are they welded into one people? By community of interests. That is the secret.—DE TOCQUEVILLE, Democracy in America

67. Don't sell America short.—Traditional

68. 'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world.—WASHINGTON

69. Thank God! I—I also—am an American!—DANIEL WEBSTER

70. I shall know but one country. The ends I aim at shall be my country's, my God's, and Truth's. I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American.—DANIEL WEBSTER

71. One country, one constitution, one destiny.—DANIEL WEBSTER

72. Long, too long America
    Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only,
    But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direct fate and recoiling not.—WALT WHITMAN, Long, Too Long America

73. As a strong bird on pinions free,
    Joyous, the amplest spaces heaven­ward cleaving,
    Such be the thought I'd think of thee, America,
    Such be the recitative I'd bring for thee.—WALT WHITMAN, Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood

74. O America because you build for mankind I build for you.—WALT WHITMAN, By Blue Ontario's Shore

75. I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear.—WALT WHITMAN, I Hear America Singing

76. The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem. . . . Here at last is something in the doings of man that corresponds with the broadcast doings of the day and night.—WALT WHITMAN, Preface to Leaves of Grass

77. And thou, America,
    Thy offspring towering e'er so high, yet higher Thee above all towering,
    With Victory on thy left, and at thy right hand Law;
    Thou Union holding all, fusing, absorbing, tolerating all,
    Thee, ever thee, I sing.—WALT WHITMAN, Song of the Exposition

78. America is one long expectoration.—OSCAR WILDE

79. The only thing that has ever distinguished America among the nations is that she has shown that all men are entitled to the benefits of the law.—WOODROW WILSON

80. Just what is it that America stands for? If she stands for one thing more than another, it is for the sovereignty of self-governing people.—WOODROW WILSON

81. Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world.—WOODROW WILSON

82. Americanism consists in utterly believing in the principles of America.—WOODROW WILSON

83. Some Americans need hyphens in their names because only part of them has come over.—WOODROW WILSON

84. Our whole duty, for the present, at any rate, is summed up in the motto: America First.—WOODROW WILSON

85. Pickaxe, shovel, spade, crowbar, hoe, and barrow,
    Better not invade, Yankees have the marrow.—SAMUEL WOODWORTH, The Patriotic Diggers

86. America is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming!—ISRAEL ZANGWILL, The Melting-Pot