Quotessence
Home / Topics / American Character Quotes

American Character Quotes

Browse 36 quotes about American Character.

American Character Quotes

“Every nation can be summed up by a single book or play, or by a particular author. America is perhaps perfectly encapsulated by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is a book about luxury, enchantment, glamour, magic spells, aspiration, a vulgar Wonderland, insecurity, pretentiousness, bluffing, soullessness, fakes, phonies, emptiness, desperation, regrets, and impossible dreams. “Her voice is full of money,” says the narrator about the beguiling muse Daisy Buchanan. Could this not serve as the epitaph for the American Dream itself as it is finally laid to rest?”

BooksMaterialismThe Great GatsbyAmerican CharacterThe American DreamMammonism
Book:Character Wars: America's Failing Character
Create image

“Huck [Finn] and Tom [Sawyer] represent two viable models of the American Character. They exist side by side in every American and every American action. America is, and always has been, undecided about whether it will be the United States of Tom or the United States of Huck. The United States of Tom looks at misery and says: Hey, I didn't do it. It looks at inequity and says: All my life I have busted my butt to get where I am, so don't come crying to me. Tom likes kings, codified nobility, unquestioned privilege. Huck likes people, fair play, spreading the truck around. Whereas Tom knows, Huck wonders. Whereas Huck hopes, Tom presumes. Whereas Huck cares, Tom denies. These two parts of the American Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the nation, and come to think of it, these two parts of the World Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the world, and the hope of the nation and of the world is to embrace the Huck part and send the Tom part back up the river, where it belongs.”

AmericaPrivilegeEqualityAmericansMark TwainAmerican CharacterTom SawyerHuck FinnAmerican Psyche
Book:The Braindead Megaphone
Create image

“New pressures are causing ever more people to find their main satisfaction in their consumptive role rather than in their productive role. And these pressures are bringing forward such traits as pleasure-mindedness, self-indulgence, materialism, and passivity as conspicuous elements of the American character.”

PeopleSelfCharacterPleasureRolesElementsPressureSatisfactionProductiveMaterialismTraitsConsumerismIndulgenceOverconsumptionPassivitySelf IndulgenceAmerican Character
Author:Vance Packard
Create image

“One of the most important virtues of the American character is our ability to approach the complexities that life presents us with common sense and decency, .. The considered judgment of the American people is not going to rise or fall on the fine distinctions of a legal argument but on straight talk and the truth. It is time for the president and the Congress to follow that common sense for the good of the country.”

PeopleImportantCountryCharacterFallPresidentAbilityCommonVirtueFineJudgmentApproachArgumentCongressCommon SenseComplexityDistinctionDecencyAmerican Character
Author:Dick Gephardt
Create image

“Uncontrollable consumerism has become a watchword of our culture despite regular and compelling calls for its end. The United States has more malls than high schools; Americans spend more time shopping than reading. ... Some of the most insightful writing about the American character over the nation's history has been about neither freedom nor democracy but about the crazed impulse to acquire things.”

WritingHas BeensEndsStatesCharacterSchoolCultureReadingNationsUnitedUnited StatesDemocracyHigh SchoolDespiteImpulseAcquireMore TimeInsightfulShoppingCompellingConsumerismMallsUncontrollableAmerican Character
Book:Loud and Clear
Create image

“If we are to give our utmost effort and skill and enthusiasm, we must believe in ourselves, which means believing in our past and in our future, in our parents and in our children, in that particular blend of moral purpose and practical inventiveness which is the American character.”

IfsGivingBelieveMeanChildrenCharacterPastPurposeParentEffortMoralParticularSkillsOur ChildrenPracticalsEnthusiasmOur FutureOur PastInventivenessAmerican Character
Author:Margaret Mead
Create image

“The entitlement mentality so carefully cultivated by liberal academics, politicians, clergymen, and journalists continues to corrode the self-sufficiency that once defined the American character.”

SelfCharacterPoliticianDefinedJournalistMentalityEntitlementSelf SufficiencySufficiencyClergymenAmerican CharacterEntitlement Mentality
Book:Do-Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help and the Rest of Us
Create image

“Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.”

LifeInspirationalMayCharacterMotivationalSuccessSportsLeadershipAbilityWonderBasketballEntrepreneurCoachesMotivational SportsThought ProvokingSwimSwimmingKey To SuccessGrowth MindsetGood CharacterFamous BasketballCharacter DevelopmentInspirational BasketballMotivational Inspirational SportsGood BasketballUclaIntegrity And CharacterIntegrity CharacterHonor And IntegrityBasketball LeadershipPersonality FlawsCharacter And ReputationBasketball SuccessBasketball WinningAmerican CharacterPersonal CharacterWinning BasketballSkills And Talent
Author:Stevie Wonder
Create image

“If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted . . . . If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the Divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.”

IfsMenGovernmentHappinessLawReligionPrinciplesDemocracyFailingDivineDutyFailureCitizensMoralityRepublicanOfficeElectionProsperityCommandSecureAdministrationVotingNeglectOur Founding FathersUs Founding FathersBad ManFounding Fathers Of AmericaFounding AmericaMorality And ReligionRepublican GovernmentAmerican CharacterCorrupt SocietyVoting Founding Fathers
Book:Instructive and Entertaining Lessons for Youth: With Rules for Reading with Propriety, Illustrated by Examples: Designed for Use in Schools and Families
Create image

“My ardent desire is, and my aim has been, to comply strictly with all our engagements, foreign and domestic, but to keep the United States free from political connections with every other country; to see that they may be independent of all and under the influence of none.”

WayWantMayHas BeensCountryStatesCharacterHomePoliticalDesireInfluencePolicyJudgmentEuropeConnectionsAimIndependentConvincedEngagementForeign PolicyOther CountriesArdentAmerican Character
Author:George Washington
Create image

“To watch an American on a beach, or crowding into a subway, or buying a theatre ticket, or sitting at home with his radio on, tells you something about one aspect of the American character: the capacity to withstand a great deal of outside interference, so to speak; a willing acceptance of frenzy which, though it's never self-conscious, amounts to a willingness to let other people have and assert their own lively, and even offensive, character. They are a tough race in this.”

PeopleSelfCharacterHomeSpeakDealsRaceWatchesAcceptanceWillingAmountConsciousSittingToughCapacityAspectTheaterRadioBeachBuyingWillingnessTicketsOffensiveSelf ConsciousLivelyInterferenceSubwayFrenzyAmerican Character
Author:Alistair Cooke
Create image

“Look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin.”

PeopleLooksCharacterDreamKidsRightsColorJudgingKingsSpeechRacismSkinsEqualityDiscriminationAfrican AmericanJudgedAmerican DreamDiverseAmerican HistoryCivil Rights MovementStrength Of CharacterI Had A DreamMulticulturalUnity In DiversityOregonSkin ColorBeing EqualHappy ChildrenIntegrity And CharacterIntegrity CharacterEquality Of PeopleEquality For AllI Have A Dream SpeechKings SpeechKings And LoveBeing JudgedGood KingsSocial EqualityPeaceful ProtestInspirational CharacterSlave OwnersAmerican CharacterInjustice And OppressionInspirational DiversityBlack SkinRacism And PrejudiceAfrican American Civil RightsJudge Of CharacterGreat ConservativeBrown SkinMarch On WashingtonRace And ColorDeep DisappointmentTrue EqualityAfrican RacePreschool Children
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
Create image

“We want the spirit of America to be efficient; we want American character to be efficient; we want American character to display itself in what I may, perhaps, be allowed to call spiritual efficiency - clear disinterested thinking and fearless action”

ThinkingWantMayCharacterActionAmericaSpiritualSpiritClearFearlessDisplayEfficientEfficiencyDisinterestedAmerican Character
Book:Addresses of President Wilson, January 27-February 3, 1916
Create image

“The American mood, perhaps even the American character, has changed. There are few manifestations any longer of the old American self-assurance which so irritated Dickens. Instead, there is a sense of frustration so perceptible that even our politicians have attempted to exploit it.”

SelfCharacterAmericaChangedPoliticianMoodManifestationFrustrationAssuranceExploitsIrritatedDickensSelf AssuranceAmerican Character
Book:Riders on the Earth: essays and recollections
Create image