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American History Quotes

Browse 674 quotes about American History.

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American History Quotes

“American culture has a lot of great moustaches in its history. Mark Twain had a great moustache, Charlie Chaplin, Ben Turpin ... but Zappa, he's got the best moustache in American history. Got the moustache, right, and he's got that little thing on his chin, I think it's called an imperial, that is, like, the coolest thing. That's like one of the great icons of the twentieth century.”

ThinkingLittlesCultureCenturyMarkLittle ThingsAmerican HistoryTwentieth CenturyAmerican CultureCharlieIconsChinsMoustacheChaplinZappa
Author:Matt Groening
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“The potential for greatness lives within us all.”

BlackGreatnessNotionAthleteAfrican AmericanAmerican HistoryOlympicsUnderestimateBlack WomenOur DreamsHuman SpiritInspirational SportsMedalBlack HistoryUs HistoryGold MedalsNever UnderestimateUnderestimatedOlympic GamesHuman PotentialAthlete MotivationalOlympianBlack History MonthAfrican American WomenPotential For GreatnessInspirational AthleteGreat AthleteBlack History Month InspirationalAfrican American HistoryInspiring AthleteOlympic AthleteBlack History InspirationalOlympics GamesOlympic MedalsPerseverance MotivationalAfrican American InspirationalAfrican American History MonthBlack InspirationalBlack MotivationalGreatness WithinInfluence And Power
Author:Wilma Rudolph
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“There is nothing antithetical in American history, culture, or traditions to teamwork. Teams were important in America's history - wagon trains conquered the West, men working together on the assembly line in American industry conquered the world, a successful national strategy and a lot of teamwork put an American on the moon first (and thus fare, last). But American mythology extols only the individual...In America, halls of fame exist for almost every conceivable activity, but nowhere do Americans raise monuments in praise of teamwork.”

MenWorldFirstsImportantTogetherLastsAmericaCultureIndividualLinesSuccessfulTeamIndustryActivityFameMoonTraditionPraiseRaisesStrategyTrainWestMythologyWorking TogetherHallsTeamworkCollaborationAmerican HistoryMonumentAssemblyWagonsHall Of FameAssembly Line
Author:Lester Thurow
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“White America has seen to it that Black history has been suppressed in schools and in American history books. The bravery of hundreds of our ancestors who took part in slave rebellions has been lost in the mists of time, since plantation owners did their best to prevent any written accounts of uprisings.”

Has BeensBookSchoolAmericaLostBlackWhiteWrittenAccountsBraverySlaveOwnersRebellionAncestorAmerican HistoryBlack HistoryMistUprisingHistory BooksPlantations
Book:Revolutionary Suicide: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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“All of Western tradition, from the late bloom of the British Empire right through the early doom of Vietnam, dictates that you do something spectacular and irreversible whenever you find yourself in or whenever you impose yourself upon a wholly unfamiliar situation belonging to somebody else. Frequently it's your soul or your honor or your manhood, or democracy itself, at stake.”

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Book:Civil Wars
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“One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over. We must not remember that Daniel Webster got drunk but only that he was a splendid constitutional lawyer. We must forget that George Washington was a slave owner . . . and simply remember the things we regard as creditable and inspiring. The difficulty, of course, with this philosophy is that history loses its value as an incentive and example; it paints perfect man and noble nations, but it does not tell the truth.”

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Author:W. E. B. Du Bois
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“I have sworn upon the altar of God Eternal, hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“Of the people, by the people, for the people.”

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Author:Sun Yat-sen
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“We are the ones we've been waiting for.”

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Author:June Jordan
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“Modern Democrats aren't the first political party to abuse power - far from it. Obama isn'€™t the first president to abuse executive power - not by a longshot. But he has to be the first president in American history to overtly and consistently argue that he's empowered to legislate if Congress doesn'€™t pass the laws he favors. It's an argument that's been mainstreamed by partisans and cheered on by those in media desperate to find a morsel of triumph in this presidency.”

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Author:David Harsanyi
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“It is a pity that so many Americans today think of the Indian as a romantic or comic figure in American history without contemporary significance. In fact, the Indian plays much the same role in our society that the Jews played in Germany. Like the miner’s canary, the Indian marks the shift from fresh air to poison gas in our political atmosphere; and our treatment of Indians, even more than our treatment of other minorities, reflects the rise and fall in our democratic faith.”

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Author:Felix S. Cohen
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“Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. To say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity.”

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Author:Barack Obama
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“For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.”

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Author:Maya Angelou
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“John Lane has long been recognized as one of the South's finest poets and memoirists. This debut establishes him as one of our finest novelists as well. His poet's eye for detail seamlessly merges with a born storyteller's gift for narrative. Fate Moreland's Widow gives voice to those who endured one of the most painful and neglected chapters in American history.”

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Author:Ron Rash
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