105 Inspiring Quotes About America

May 7, 2025
35 min read
6947 words
105 Inspiring Quotes About America

In every corner of its vast landscape, from bustling city streets to serene rural vistas, America brims with stories of resilience, courage, and dreams. These stories are often distilled into powerful words, offering inspiration and insight into the nation's spirit. Whether celebrating its democratic ideals, reflecting on its complex history, or simply reveling in its unique cultural tapestry, quotes about America capture the essence of this ever-evolving nation. In this collection of 105 inspiring quotes, you will find voices from diverse backgrounds and eras, each contributing to the ongoing conversation about what makes America truly remarkable. Let these words uplift your spirit and deepen your appreciation for the American journey.

1. “America has never quite forgiven Europe for having been discovered somewhat earlier in history than itself.” - Oscar Wilde

2. “America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.” - Oscar Wilde

3. “Everybody's serious but me.” - Allen Ginsberg

4. “[Walmart]s largest innovation consists in getting rid of the central Fordist principle of paying the workers enough so that they can afford to buy what they manufacture. Instead, WalMart has pioneered the inverse principle: paying the workers so little that they cannot afford to shop anywhere other than at WalMart. It might even be said, not too hyperbolically, that WalMart has singlehandedly preserved the American economy from total collapse, in that their lowered prices are the only thing that has allowed millions of the “working poor” to retain the status of consumers at all, rather than falling into the “black hole” of total immiseration. WalMart is part and parcel of how the “new economy” has largely been founded upon transferring wealth from the less wealthy to the already-extremely-rich. ” - Steven Shaviro

5. “America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.” - Oscar Wilde

6. “The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation.” - William McKinley

7. “No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America.” - Thomas Jefferson

8. “So the American government lied to the Native Americans for many, many years, and then President Clinton lied about a relationship, and everyone was surprised! A little naïve, I feel!” - Eddie Izzard

9. “Why did the Articles [of Confederation] fail so completely? Most historians believe the founding fathers spent a great deal of their first constitutional convention drafting the delaration of independence and only realized on July 3rd the Articles were also due.” - Jon Stewart

10. “Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country have been waged by many good as well as by evil men. Nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon but at other times and places the ends have been racial or territorial security, support of a dynasty or regime, and particular plans for saving souls. As first and moderate methods to attain unity have failed, those bent on its accomplishment must resort to an ever-increasing severity. . . . Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.It seems trite but necessary to say that the First Amendment to our Constitution was designed to avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings. There is no mysticism in the American concept of the State or of the nature or origin of its authority. We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority.If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” - Robert H. Jackson

11. “America, it has been observed, is not really a melting pot. It is actually a huge potluck dinner, in which platters of roasted chicken beckon beside casseroles of pasta, mounds of tortillas, stew pots of gumbo, and skillets filled with pilafs of every imaginable color.” - Andrea Chesman

12. “Saying someone is religious is heard in most of America as a compliment, a reassuring affirmation that someone will be moral, ethical, and after a few glasses of wine, a freak in the bedroom.” - Bill Maher

13. “New skin, a new land! And a land of liberty, if that is possible! I chose the geology of a land that was new to me, and that was young, virgin, and without drama, that of America. I traveled in America, but instead of romantically and directly rubbing the snakeskin of my body against the asperities of its terrain, I preferred to peel protected within the armor of the gleaming black crustacean of a Cadillac which I gave Gala as a present. Nevertheless all the men who admire and the women who are in love with my old skin will easily be able to find its remnants in shredded pieces of various sizes scattered to the winds along the roads from New York via Pittsburgh to California. I have peeled with every wind; pieces of my skin have remained caught here and there along my way, scattered through that "promised land" which is America; certain pieces of this skin have remained hanging in the spiny vegetation of the Arizona desert, along the trails where I galloped on horseback, where I got rid of all my former Aristotelian "planetary notions." Other pieces of my skin have remained spread out like tablecloths without food on the summits of the rocky masses by which one reaches the Salt Lake, in which the hard passion of the Mormons saluted in me the European phantom of Apollinaire. Still other pieces have remained suspended along the "antediluvian" bridge of San Francisco, where I saw in passing the ten thousand most beautiful virgins in America, completely naked, standing in line on each side of me as I passed, like two rows of organ-pipes of angelic flesh with cowrie-shell sea vulvas.” - Salvador Dali

14. “The IQ and the life expectancy of the average American recently passed each other in opposite directions.” - George Carlin

15. “Used to the conditions of a capitalistic environment, the average American takes it for granted that every year business makes something new and better accessible to him. Looking backward upon the years of his own life, he realizes that many implements that were totally unknown in the days of his youth and many others which at that time could be enjoyed only by a small minority are now standard equipment of almost every household. He is fully confident that this trend will prevail also in the future. He simply calls it the American way of life and does not give serious thought to the question of what made this continuous improvement in the supply of material goods possible.” - Ludwig Von Mises

16. “That's what America's all about, man, if it's about anything. You can choose your own name.” - Michael Ventura

17. “With the single exception of the American Revolution, the aftermath of all revolutions from 1789 on only worsened the human condition.” - Arnold Beichman

18. “It’s like, how did Columbus discover America when the Indians were already here? What kind of shit is that, but white people’s shit?” - Miles Davis

19. “If there was no New Orleans, America would just be a bunch of free people dying of boredom." -Judy Deck in an e-mail sent to Chris Rose” - Chris Rose

20. “I do love America. And LA is a very short commute to America its like half an hour on the plane.” - Craig Ferguson

21. “It will take time to restore chaos” - George W. Bush

22. “Being a copper I like to see the law win. I'd like to see the flashy well-dressed mugs like Eddie Mars spoiling their manicures in the rock quarry at Folsom, alongside of the poor little slum-bred guys that got knocked over on their first caper amd never had a break since. That's what I'd like. You and me both lived too long to think I'm likely to see it happen. Not in this town, not in any town half this size, in any part of this wide, green and beautiful U.S.A. We just don't run our country that way.” - Raymond Chandler

23. “In America, your ancestors don't matter so much. You're just you.” - Lensey Namioka

24. “This book is dedicated to the people of America--strong, outspoken, intense in their convictions, sometimes wrong-headed but always generous and brave, with a passion for justice no nation has ever matched.” - Paul Bede Johnson

25. “Every man has two counties--his own and America.” - Max Lerner

26. “The United States is the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, yet its inhabitants are strikingly unhappy. Accordingly, we present to the rest of mankind, on a planet rife with suffering and tragedy, the spectacle of a clown civilization. Sustained on a clown diet rich in sugar and fat, we have developed a clown physiognomy. We dress like clowns. We move about a landscape filled with cartoon buildings in clownmobiles, absorbed in clownish activities. We fill our idle hours enjoying the canned antics of professional clowns... Death, when we acknowledge it, is just another pratfall on the boob tube. Bang! You're dead!” - James Howard Kunstler

27. “Six-Pack didn't despise George W. Bush to the degree that Ketchum did, but she thought the president was a smirking twerp and a dumbed-down daddy's boy, and she agreed with Ketchum's assessment that Bush would be as worthless as wet crap in even the smallest crisis. If a fight broke out between two small dogs, for example, Ketchum claimed that Bush would call the fire department and ask them to bring a hose; then the president would position himself at a safe distance from the dogfight, and wait for the firemen to show up. The part Pam liked best about this assessment was that Ketchum said the president would instantly look self-important, and would appear to be actively involved--that is, once the firefighters and their hose arrived, and provided there was anything remaining of the mess the two dogs might have made of each other in the interim.” - John Irving

28. “In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.” - Bertrand Russell

29. “America hadn't really been suited for its long and tiresome role as the Last Superpower, the World's Policeman. As a patriotic American, Oscar was quite content to watch other people's military coming home in boxes for a while. The American national character wasn't suited for global police duties. It never had been. Tidy and meticulous people such as the Swiss and the Swedes were the types who made good cops. America was far better suited to be the World's Movie Star. The world's tequila-addled pro-league bowler. The world's acerbic, bipolar stand-up comedian. Anything but a somber and tedious nation of socially responsible centurions.” - Bruce Sterling

30. “There were no mail-order catalogues in 1492. Marco Polo's journal was the wish book of Renaissance Europe. Then, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and landed in Sears' basement. Despite all the Indians on the escalator, Columbus' visit came to be known as a "discovery.” - Tom Robbins

31. “It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break; the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.” - Barack Obama

32. “If there is a country in the world where concord, according to common calculation, would be least expected, it is America. Made up as it is of people from different nations, accustomed to different forms and habits of government, speaking different languages, and more different in their modes of worship, it would appear that the union of such a people was impracticable; but by the simple operation of constructing government on the principles of society and the rights of man, every difficulty retires, and all the parts are brought into cordial unison. There the poor are not oppressed, the rich are not privileged. Industry is not mortified by the splendid extravagance of a court rioting at its expense. Their taxes are few, because their government is just: and as there is nothing to render them wretched, there is nothing to engender riots and tumults.” - Thomas Paine

33. “To [the government] it didn't matter what happened to the American people as long as america in the abstract was kept strong.” - Isaac Asimov

34. “Grandma frowned and yelled something in Russian. She could have been saying, 'Open up, your best friend is here.' On the other hand, it could have been, 'America is a great country because of canned ravioli.” - Laurie Halse Anderson

35. “If Waterboarding is okay, then why don't we let our police do it to criminals so they can find out what they know? Because it's against the law. If we're not going to be a country that stand's for the rule of law, when it's convenient or inconvenient, then what DO we stand for.” - Jesse Ventura

36. “The Americans won't win. They're not fighting for their homeland. They just want to be good. In order to be good, they just have to fight awhile and then leave.” - Denis Johnson

37. “Of all the world's civilizations, America was the one that most needed losers.” - STEPHANE AUDEGUY

38. “For Americans, Acts 16:9 is the high-fructose corn syrup of Bible verses--an all-purpose ingredient we'll stir into everything from the ink on the Marshall Plan to canisters of Agent Orange. Our greatest goodness and our worst impulses come out of this missionary zeal, contributing to our overbearing (yet not entirely unwarranted) sense of our country as an inherently helpful force in the world. And, as with the apostle Paul, the notion that strangers want our help is sometimes a delusion.” - Sarah Vowell

39. “Acts 16:9 is the meddler's motto, simultaneously selfless and self-serving, generous but stuck-up. Into every generation of Americans is born a new crop of buttinskys sniffing out the latest Macedonia that may or may not want their help.” - Sarah Vowell

40. “America was, to them, the place that good people went to when they died. They were prepared to believe just about anything could happen in America.” - Neil Gaiman

41. “New York is made up of millions of different people, and they all come here looking for something” - Lindsey Kelk

42. “We call our country home of the brave and land of the free, but it's not. We give a false portrayal of freedom. We're not free — if we were, we'd allow people their freedom. Prohibiting something doesn't make it go away. Prostitution is criminal, and bad things happen because it's run illegally by dirt-bags who are criminals. If it's legal, then the girls could have health checks, unions, benefits, anything any other worker gets, and it would be far better.” - Jesse Ventura

43. “We think ourselves possessed, or at least we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact. There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny, or to doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England itself, it is punished by boring through the tongue with a red-hot poker. In America it is not much better; even in our Massachusetts, which, I believe, upon the whole, is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most of the States, a law was made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all those blasphemies upon any book of the Old Testament or New. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any arguments for investigation into the divine authority of those books? Who would run the risk of translating Volney's Recherches Nouvelles? Who would run the risk of translating Dupuis? But I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws... but as long as they continue in force as laws, the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed.{Letter to Thomas Jefferson, January 23, 1825}” - John Adams

44. “They fought the enemy, we fight fat living and self-pity. Shine, o shine, unfalsifying sun, on this sick scene.” - Marianne Moore

45. “What are the present governments of Europe, but a scene of iniquity and oppression? What is that of England? Do not its own inhabitants say, It is a market where every man has his price, and where corruption is common traffic, at the expense of a deluded people? No wonder, then, that the French Revolution is traduced.” - Thomas Paine

46. “The interaction of disparate cultures, the vehemence of the ideals that led the immigrants here, the opportunity offered by a new life, all gave America a flavor and a character that make it as unmistakable and as remarkable to people today as it was to Alexis de Tocqueville in the early part of the nineteenth century.” - John F. Kennedy

47. “[I]n communism, you'd threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes.” - Adam Johnson

48. “Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t in Don’t Shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half the people are right more than half the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn’t been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It’s the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee. Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is.” - E. B. White

49. “The greatest miracle Christianity has achieved in America is that the black man in white Christian hands has not grown violent. It is a miracle that 22 million black people have not risen up against their oppressors – in which they would have been justified by all moral criteria, and even by the democratic tradition! It is a miracle that a nation of black people has so fervently continued to believe in a turn-the-other-cheek and heaven-for-you-after-you-die philosophy! It is a miracle that the American black people have remained a peaceful people, while catching all the centuries of hell that they have caught, here in white man’s heaven! The miracle is that the white man’s puppet Negro ‘leaders’, his preachers and the educated Negroes laden with degrees, and others who have been allowed to wax fat off their black poor brothers, have been able to hold the black masses quiet until now.” - Malcolm X

50. “I have always regarded as a stroke of good fortune that I was not born or brought up in a small American town; they may be the backbone of the nation, but they are also the backbone of ignorance, bigotry, and boredom, all in vast quantities.” - Gore Vidal

51. “She had no need in her heart for either book or magazine. She had her own way of escape, her own passage into contentment: her rosary. That string of white beads, the tiny links worn in a dozen places and held together by strands of white thread which in turn broke regularly, was, bead for bead, her quiet flight out of the world. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. And Maria began to climb. Bead for bead, life and living fell away. Hail Mary, Hail Mary. Dream without sleep encompassed her. Passion without flesh lulled her. Love without death crooned the melody of belief. She was away: she was free; she was no longer Maria, American or Italian, poor or rich, with or without electric washing machines and vacuum cleaners; here was the land of all-possessing. Hail Mary, Hail Mary, over and over, a thousand and a hundred thousand times, prayer upon prayer, the sleep of the body, the escape of the mind, the death of memory, the slipping away of pain, the deep silent reverie of belief. Hail Mary and Hail Mary. It was for this that she lived.” - John Fante

52. “Yes here's to the founding fathers—slave-owners, British citizens who didn't want to pay taxes...” - David Mazzucchelli

53. “And the looks on the faces of my countrymenpassive heads bent arms at their trousers everyone guilty of not being their best of not earning their daily bread the kind of docility I had never expected from Americans even after so many years of our decline. Here was the tiredness of failure imposed on a country that believed only in its opposite. Here was the end product of our deep moral exhaustion.” - Gary Shteyngart

54. “As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.” - Abraham Lincoln

55. “A lot of the nonsense was the innocent result of playfulness on the part of the founding fathers of the nation of Dwayne Hoover and Kilgore Trout. The founders were aristocrats, and they wished to show off their useless eduction, which consisted of the study of hocus-pocus from ancient times. They were bum poets as well. But some of the nonsense was evil, since it concealed great crime. For example, teachers of children in the United States of America wrote this date on blackboards again and again, and asked the children to memorize it with pride and joy:1492The teachers told the children that this was when their continent was discovered by human beings. Actually, millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them.Here was another piece of nonsense which children were taught: that the sea pirates eventually created a government which became a beacon of freedom of human beings everywhere else. There were pictures and statues of this supposed imaginary beacon for children to see. It was sort of ice-cream cone on fire. It looked like this:[image]Actually, the sea pirates who had the most to do with the creation of the new government owned human slaves. They used human beings for machinery, and, even after slavery was eliminated, because it was so embarrassing, they and their descendants continued to think of ordinary human beings as machines.The sea pirates were white. The people who were already on the continent when the pirates arrived were copper-colored. When slavery was introduced onto the continent, the slaves were black.Color was everything.Here is how the pirates were able to take whatever they wanted from anybody else: they had the best boats in the world, and they were meaner than anybody else, and they had gunpowder, which is a mixture of potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulphur. They touched the seemingly listless powder with fire, and it turned violently into gas. This gas blew projectiles out of metal tubes at terrific velocities. The projectiles cut through meat and bone very easily; so the pirates could wreck the wiring or the bellows or the plumbing of a stubborn human being, even when he was far, far away.The chief weapon of the sea pirates, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was much too late, how heartless and greedy they were.” - Kurt Vonnegut

56. “America, the plum blossoms are falling.” - Allan Ginsberg

57. “Her mighty lakes, like oceans of liquid silver; her mountains, with bright aerial tints; her valleys, teeming with wild fertility; her tremendous cataracts, thundering in their solitudes; her boundless plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; her broad, deep rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the ocean; her trackless forests, where vegetation puts forth all its magnificence; her skies, kindling with the magic of summer clouds and glorious sunshine - no, never need an American look beyond his own country for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery.” - Washington Irving

58. “Our political system is now run by the Big People for their own interests. If they ever deign to notice the Little People, it is with disdain and contempt.” - John Derbyshire

59. “I know not why any one but a schoolboy in his declamation should whine over the Commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves, and of one another.” - Samuel Johnson

60. “America is the first culture in jeopardy of amusing itself to death.” - John Piper

61. “We drove 22 miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows and apple orchards. White fences trailed through the rolling fields. Soon the sign started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were 40 cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides -- pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book. "No one sees the barn," he said finally. A long silence followed. "Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn."He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced by others.We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies." There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides. "Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We've agreed to be part of a collective perception. It literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism." Another silence ensued. "They are taking pictures of taking pictures," he said.” - Don DeLillo

62. “We don't like to kill our unborn; we need them to grow up and fight our wars.” - Marilyn Manson

63. “England and America owe their liberty to commerce, which created a new species of power to undermine the feudal system. But let them beware of the consequences: the tyranny of wealth is still more galling and debasing than that of rank.” - Mary Wollstonecraft

64. “American humorist Kin Hubbard said , "It ain't no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be". The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: "If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?" Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue... Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times.Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.” - Kurt Vonnegut

65. “Do not be afriad! I can see that Americans are not afraid. They are not afraid of the sun, they are not afraid of the wind, they are not afraid of 'today'. They are, generally speaking, brave, good people. And so I say to you today, always be brave. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. God is with you. Do not be afraid to search for God-then you will truly be the land of the free, the home of the brave. God Bless America.” - Peggy Noonan

66. “It's halftime. Both teams are in their locker room discussing what they can do to win this game in the second half.It's halftime in America, too. People are out of work and they're hurting. And they're all wondering what they're going to do to make a comeback. And we're all scared, because this isn't a game.The people of Detroit know a little something about this. They almost lost everything. But we all pulled together, now Motor City is fighting again.I've seen a lot of tough eras, a lot of downturns in my life. And, times when we didn't understand each other. It seems like we've lost our heart at times. When the fog of division, discord, and blame made it hard to see what lies ahead.But after those trials, we all rallied around what was right, and acted as one. Because that's what we do. We find a way through tough times, and if we can't find a way, then we'll make one.All that matters now is what's ahead. How do we come from behind? How do we come together? And, how do we win?Detroit's showing us it can be done. And, what's true about them is true about all of us.This country can't be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again and when we do the world is going to hear the roar of our engines.Yeah, it's halftime America. And, our second half is about to begin.” - Clint Eastwood

67. “En el silencio de las tinieblas vivían los dioses que se dicen: Tepeu, Gucumatz y Hurakán, cuyos nombres guardan los secretos de la creación, de la existencia y de la muerte, de la tierra y de los seres que la habitan.” - Popol-Vuh

68. “Pensaron cómo harían brotar la luz, la cual recibiría alimento de eternidad. La luz se hizo entonces en el seno de lo increado. Contemplaron así la naturaleza original de la vida que está en la entraña de lo desconocido.” - Popol-Vuh

69. “E quem é que os americanos não destruíram? Olha o que eles estão a fazer no Médio Oriente. É a mesma coisa.…Mas os Vietnamitas derrotaram-nos, porque eram um povo unido. Ao contrário dos idiotas dos Árabes… os Ingleses puseram-nos uns contra os outros há cem anos e eles são demasiado ignorantes para o perceberem. Se fossem unidos, podiam conquistar o mundo.…A América não vai deixar ninguém conquistar o mundo, a não ser eles próprios. Rebentam com todos nós antes de deixarem seja quem for levar vantagem.” - Christos Tsiolkas

70. “Let us make sure that the supreme fact of the 20th century is that they tread the same path.” - Winston Churchill

71. “We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

72. “I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand and villainy on the other, as this Writ of Assistance is.” - James Otis

73. “The American war is over, but this is far from being the case with the American Revolution.” - Benjamin Rush

74. “Whether they will or not, Americans must now begin to look outward. The growing production of the country demands it.” - Alfred Thayer Mahan

75. “So far, I had a solid collection of my honest opinions…” - Kiera Cass

76. “My shoes I got to pick. I chose worn-out red flats. I figured I should make it clear from the start that I wasn’t princess material.” - Kiera Cass

77. “So here I was expecting at the very best a cordial welcome from the girls who were prepared to fight me to the death for someone I didn’t want. Instead I was embraced.” - Kiera Cass

78. “I guessed princesses-in-training didn’t wear pants.” - Kiera Cass

79. “I let myself be sad. I let myself think of him.” - Kiera Cass

80. “I’ve met nearly every woman in this room, and I can’t think of one who would make a better friend. I’d be glad to have you stay."My relief was inexpressible."Do you think," Maxon asked, "That I could still call you ‘my dear’?" "Not a chance." I whispered.” - Kiera Cass

81. “So, buddy…” - Kiera Cass

82. “You’re too beautiful for your own good. Once you leave, we’ll have to send some of the guards with you. You’ll never survive on your own, poor thing.” - Kiera Cass

83. “The Swendish queen— whose name I couldn’t pronounce to save my life.” - Kiera Cass

84. “No, I’m not choosing him or you. I’m choosing me.” - Kiera Cass

85. “It’s just amazing how long this country has been going to hell without ever having got there.” - Andy Rooney

86. “Today you go into make a modern recording with all this technology. The bass plays first, then the drums come in later, then they track the trumpet and the singer comes in and they ship the tape somewhere. Well, none of the musicians have played together. You can’t play jazz music that way. In order for you to play jazz, you’ve got to listen to them. The music forces you at all times to address what other people are thinking and for you to interact with them with empathy and to deal with the process of working things out. And that’s how our music really could teach what the meaning of American democracy is.” - Wynton Marsalis

87. “The thing in jazz that will get Bix Beiderbecke out of his bed at two o’clock in the morning, pick that cornet up and practice into the pillow for another two or three hours, or that would make Louis Armstrong travel around the world for fifty plus years non stop, just get up out of his sick bed, crawl up on the bandstand and play, the thing that would make Duke Ellington, the thing that would make Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Mary Lou Williams, the thing that would make all of these people give their lives for this, and they did give their lives, is that it gives us a glimpse into what America is going to be when it becomes itself. And this music tells you that it will become itself. And when you get a taste of that, there’s just nothing else you’re going to taste that’s as sweet.” - Wynton Marsalis

88. “America runs on credit darling. Why do you worry, our credit will take care of this payment. It is not saving or cash in hand that matters. We do not need cash, we just need potential. The system in the US believes in potential. That isthe model of the future. You need not be born rich, but you should be in the league that can make it big.” - Ravindra Shukla

89. “We are, in fact, a nation of evangelists; every third American devotes himself to improving and lifting up his fellow-citizens, usually by force; the messianic delusion is our national disease.” - H.L. Mencken

90. “There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong.” - G.K. Chesterton

91. “There’s a lot of things wrong with this country, but one of the few things still right with it is that a man can steer clear of the organized bullshit if he really wants to. It’s a goddamned luxury, and if I were you, I’d take advantage of it while you can.” - Hunter S. Thompson

92. “France is to me the heroine in the romance of all the nations of all time. This feeling was born in me years ago when I read how her noble sons had defended America in its cradle. Today I am proud that I am one of the millions who will come to save our heroine from the clutches of the villain from across the Rhine.” - William Arthur Sirmon

93. “The joke was that President Bush only declared war when Starbucks was hit. You can mess with the U.N. all you want, but when you start interfering with the right to get caffeinated, someone has to pay.” - Chris Kyle

94. “what doesn't kill you not only make you stronger, but also more honest.” - Eric Weiner

95. “Did you ever stand on a street corner in American at five o'clock in the morning? I did.” - Jack Kerouac

96. “I wonder if she’s infatuated enough to let me lock her in a box with me on a cool fall day and make love like America depends on us.” - Darnell Lamont Walker

97. “it's difficult to root for America when the villains of the story live in a ditch and are armed with jagged rocks. At some point in recent years they looked up from their international heroism to realize they'd alienated the entire world.” - Yahtzee Croshaw

98. “The Angeles air was quiet, and for a while I laid still, listening to the sound of Maxon breathing.” - Kiera Cass

99. “It is not the self respect and pride that you take with you, but the heritage you leave behind to your children that matters. A strongly marked personality can influence descendants for generations. Those blessed with a patriotic genetic legacy should run to the top of the mountain and roar with all fervency, “If they can over come, so will I!” When you know the ghosts that stand in support of you, you can begin to see life as they did—a life of joy, possibilities and freedom.” - Shannon L. Alder

100. “America was never designed to be fixed forever, but was meant to be fluid and evolving.” - Bryant McGill

101. “Wonderful?" wrote J.O. Young in his diary. "To stand cheering, crying, waving your hat and acting like a damn fool in general. No one who has spent all but 16 days of the this war as a Nip prisoner can really know what it means to see 'Old Sammy' buzzing around over camp.” - Laura Hillenbrand

102. “Cry if you must. Scream. Get it all out of your system, and then we'll have fun. It won't last forever, but it will keep you busy for tonight.” - Jamie McGuire

103. “It seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it into a copy of another country.” - Edith Wharton

104. “The ancient paused for a moment, as if his strength were failing. Yet I sensed that there was more to tell. Looking deep into my eyes, he whispered: 'The Gond kingdoms have fallen, their people live dispersed in poverty: the teak trees and the jungles have been cleared... but the importance of the Gonds must not be forgotten!” - Tahir Shah

105. “It is not unpatriotic to acknowledge America’s faults. No country is perfect… We can’t reach the top of the mountain if we don’t fix the injustice and confront our lies. ” - Keith Ellison