A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“America was an orchard of peachy dreams behind a gauzed fence and a sign that said ‘No Tresspassing’. This land was his land as much as the next man’s. Like the folk songs he sang, it belonged to everyone, so it belonged to no one. The ungodly sin was the fence, not the crossing of it.”
Source: Woody Guthrie and the Dust Bowl Ballads
“America was and is the immigrant's dream.”
Source: Conversations with Don DeLillo
“America was based on a big promise--a great big one: the Declaration of Independence. When you have to live with that in the house, that's quite a problem--particularly when you've got to make money and get ahead, open world markets, do all the things you have to, raise your children, and so forth. America is stuck with its self-definition put on paper in 1776, and that was just like putting a burr under the metaphysical saddle of America--you see, that saddle's going to jump now and then and it pricks.”
“America was based on a poetic vision. What will happen when it loses its poetry?”
“America was big and blighted in gamey spots by racial intolerance and violence. Visiting relatives in Georgia? Here are the safe routes around the sundown towns and cracker territories where you might not make it out alive, the towns and counties to be avoided if you valued your life.”
Source: Harlem Shuffle
“America was born a Christian nation.”
Source: Woodrow Wilson: Essential Writings and Speeches of the Scholar-president
“America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness, which are derived from Holy Scripture. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a very simple thing to ask of you. I ask of every man and woman in this audience that, from this night on, they will realize that part of the destiny of America lies in their daily perusal of this great Book of revelations. (The Bible) That if they would see America free and pure they will make their own spirits free and pure by the baptism of Holy Scripture.”
Source: The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson: College and state; educational literary and political papers (1875-1913)
“America was born modern; it did not have to achieve modernity, nor did it have modernity thrust upon it.”
“America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.”
“America was born out of a desire for self-determination, a longing for the human dignity that only independence can bring.”
“America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of the Holy Scripture.”
Source: Woodrow Wilson: Essential Writings and Speeches of the Scholar-president
“America was built by immigrants. Almost nobody that I know is any more than three generations, maybe four generations, American.”
“America was built by refugees, and as such, if this land can't be a refuge for the subjugated and persecuted, then it is an insult on our very existence as the great land of the free and brave.”
Source: The Shape of A Human: Our America Their America
“America was built on an attempted genocide, anyway. Guns were completely necessary.”
“America was built on her citizens.”
“America was built on immigrants, and what they bring 'to the table.'”
“America was built on rugged individualism, and today that has evolved into a culture of narcissism. But God didn't create you to live for you. If you want to follow Jesus, you have to put aside your selfish ambition.”
“America was built on the can-do spirit and will continue to thrive on the can-do spirit.”
“America was built on the myth of the melting pot, but despite efforts of the powers that be, the ingredients never fully blended. At best there is a patchwork quilt of various ethnic groups struggling to live peacefully with one another while something called, "mainstream culture" - it looks like a Norman Rockwell painting, sounds like a George Gershwin musical, and tastes like Chef Boyardee - is offered up as the national exmple.”
Source: Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America
“America was different. America was a river, roarng along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins.”
Source: Book Club in a Box Presents the Discussion Companion for Khaled Hosseini's Novel The Kite Runner
“America was discovered accidentally by a great seaman who was looking for something else; when discovered it was not wanted; and most of the exploration for the next fifty years was done in the hope of getting through or around it. America was named after a man who discovered no part of the New World. History is like that, very chancy.”
“America was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and was named after him, until people got tired of living in a place called "Vespuccia" and changed its name to "America"”
“America was established not to create wealth but to realize a vision, to realize an ideal - to discover and maintain liberty among men.”
Source: The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson: College and state; educational literary and political papers (1875-1913)
“America was first colonized by Puritans. Most of our earliest immigrants, and many since, have come here in order to practice their religious beliefs as they please. Our culture has always been, and will most likely always be, profoundly influenced by religion.”
“America was founded by intellectuals, a rare occurrence in the history of modern nations We might even say that America was founded by intellectuals, from which it has taken us two centuries and a communications revolution to recover.”
Source: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
“America was founded by men who understood that the threat of domestic tyranny is as great as any threat from abroad. If we want to be worthy of their legacy, we must resist the rush toward ever-increasing state control of our society. Otherwise, our own government will become a greater threat to our freedoms than any foreign terrorist.”
“America was founded by people who believe that God is their Rock of safety.”
Source: Ronald Reagan
“America was founded by people who believe that God was their rock of safety. I recognize we must be cautious in claiming that God is on our side, but I think it's all right to keep asking if we're on His side.”
Source: Ronald Reagan
“America was founded by puritans and like it or not the anti-pleasure dogma of those buckled-shoed killjoys still pervades our collective unconscious like an I-max shot of Dennis Franz's naked hairy cop ass. Hence, anything enjoyable is automatically forbidden and bad and in our panic to avoid it at all cost we become obsessed with it... like dressing up in a pink teddy and a pair of ugboots and repeatedly screaming the word 'VERBOTEN!' into a conk shell balanced on the back on a miniature pony... Oh, I see.. That would just be me.”
“America was founded by religious people; devout people who came here because they wanted freedom of religion, It's what made America different from every other country.”
“America was founded by the refuse of the religious fanatics of England, these undesirable elements that came over on the Mayflower. Ignorant, religious fanatics who land here and abuse the Indians.”
“America was founded on a genocide, on the unquestioned assumption of the right of white Europeans to exterminate a resident, technologically backward, colored population in order to take over the continent.”
“America was founded on a history of deception, exploitation, and appropriation. Eventually, the layers of that reality will be uncovered, revealing the truth. And much like peeling an onion, such revelations are bound to bring tears.”
Source: Why Sell Lies When The Truth Is Free
“America was founded on majority rule, not supermajority rule. Somehow, over the years, this has morphed into supermajority rule, and that changes things.”
“America was founded on prayer. Therefore, the removal of prayer from its public life was a central part of its fall from God. A nation that turns away from prayer will ultimately find itself in desperate need of it.”
“America was founded on the backs of slaves.”
“America was founded on the principle of inalienable rights, not dictated duties. The Declaration of Independence states that every human being has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It does not state that he is born a slave to the needs of others.”
“America was good enough to make a small compact lighter weight nuclear weapon. The Russians still had these big clunky heavy ones, so they had to build the big boosters in the arm's war, so now all of the sudden Russia could take off the shelf and put into orbit much heavier things than we could, so that's why they had the original leadership.”
“America was in full swing now, all the papers said so, and people were rushing forward, leaving behind the horrors of war. She understood the reasons, but they were rushing, like Lon, toward long hours and profits, neglecting the things that brought beauty to the world.”
Source: The Notebook
“America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.”
“America was my home for a very long time, and it's a fascinating, pioneering country that many people look to. In the recent past it hasn't been doing very well, but there's a great new hope now with the election of Obama. America took a very big leap there and proved that it still has the edge as far as being able to do things many other countries may find difficult.”
“America was named after a man who discovered no part of the New World. History is like that, very chancy.”
“America was never designed to be fixed forever, but was meant to be fluid and evolving.”
Source: Voice of Reason
“America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.
Mass-market nostalgia gets you hopped up for a past that never existed. Hagiography sanctifies shuck-and-jive politicians and reinvents their expedient gestures as moments of great moral weight.”
Source: American Tabloid
“America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.”
Source: American Tabloid: Underworld USA (1)
“America was not built by conformists, but by mutineers.”
“America was not founded to improve health care or housing; it was founded for freedom.”
“America was not interventionist enough, which, of course, did mean a bit of a breach with old comrades on the left. I felt the international left in the countries concerned took the same position as I did. So, in my view, it's the left that's become reactionary and isolationist and parochial.”
“America was paralyzed; on one hand, by the power of the Southern Democrats in Congress, whose inordinate political strength and control of key committees was based on their ability to win reelection after reelection because of massive disfranchisement and racial terror; and on the other, by the missionary-like belief that America was the champion of democracy and freedom in the battle against the Soviet Union, whose death grip on human rights had no limits.”
Source: One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy
“America was still a land of wonder. The ancient spell still hung unbroken over the wild, vast world of mystery beyond the sea,-a land of romance, adventure, and gold.”
Source: France and England in North America: Pioneers of France in the New World. The Jesuits of North America in the seventeenth century. La Salle and the discovery of the Great West. The old régime in Canada