52 Iconic American Quotes

In the tapestry of American history and culture, words have played a pivotal role in shaping the nation's identity. From the eloquent expressions of founding fathers to the powerful proclamations of modern leaders, certain quotes have transcended time and circumstance, becoming iconic touchstones for American values and beliefs. Whether they inspire action, evoke reflection, or celebrate freedom, these words offer timeless wisdom. In this collection, we delve into 52 of the most iconic American quotes, each one a testament to the enduring spirit and resilience that define the United States. Join us as we explore these powerful utterances that continue to echo through the ages, capturing the essence of what it means to be American.

1. “An American is insubmissive, lonely, self-educated, and polite.” - Thornton Wilder

2. “In the present case it is a little inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible to any public office of trust or profit in the Republic. But I do not repine, for I am a subject of it only by force of arms.” - H.L. Mencken

3. “Most timidities have such secret compensations and Miss Bart was discerning enough to know that the inner vanity is generally in proportion to the outer self depreciation.” - Edith Wharton

4. “I have to return some videotapes” - Bret Easton Ellis

5. “Buffett was a billionaire who drove his own car, did his own taxes, and still lived in a home he had bought in 1958 for $31,500. He seemed to answer to a deeply rooted, distinctly American mythology, in which decency and common sense triumphed over cosmopolitan guile, and in which an idealized past held firm against a rootless and too hurriedly changing present.” - Roger Lowenstein

6. “Buffett's uncommon urge to chronicle made him a unique character in American life, not only a great capitalist but the Great Explainer of American capitalism. He taught a generation how to think about business, and he showed that securities were not just tokens like the Monopoly flatiron, and that investing need not be a game of chance. It was also a logical, commonsensical enterprise, like the tangible businesses beneath. He stripped Wall Street of its mystery and rejoined it to Main Street -- a mythical or disappearing place, perhaps, but one that is comprehensible to the ordinary American.” - Roger Lowenstein

7. “Let the watchwords of all our people be the old familiar watchwords of honesty, decency, fair-dealing, and commonsense."... "We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less.""The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us.” - Theodore Roosevelt

8. “I worked night and day for twelve years to prevent the war, but I could not. The North was mad and blind, would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came.” - Jefferson Davis

9. “The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.” - Jefferson Davis

10. “There is nothing so American as our national parks. The scenery and the wildlife are native. The fundamental idea behind the parks is native. It is, in brief, that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us. The parks stand as the outward symbal of the great human principle.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt

11. “Be my secret. Be my joy. Be a miracle to me." From the song MIRACLE TO ME, from the album LIONS, by THE BLACK CROWES.” - The Black Crowes

12. “I have defined the hundred per cent American as ninety-nine per cent an idiot.” - George Bernard Shaw

13. “When you've nothing else construct ceremonies out of the air and breathe upon them.” - Cormac McCarthy

14. “For most Americans, economic growth is a spectator sport.” - Paul Krugman

15. “- If I tell you, will you let met go?- You bet, partner. [...]- You promised!- Nope. I said "you bet." You did ... and you lost.” - Scott Snyder

16. “The truth is, immigrants tend to be more American than people born here.” - Chuck Palahniuk

17. “Much of our food system depends on our not knowing much about it, beyond the price disclosed by the checkout scanner; cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing. And it's a short way from not knowing who's at the other end of your food chain to not caring–to the carelessness of both producers and consumers that characterizes our economy today. Of course, the global economy couldn't very well function without this wall of ignorance and the indifference it breeds. This is why the American food industry and its international counterparts fight to keep their products from telling even the simplest stories–"dolphin safe," "humanely slaughtered," etc.–about how they were produced. The more knowledge people have about the way their food is produced, the more likely it is that their values–and not just "value"–will inform their purchasing decisions.” - Michael Pollan

18. “it ain't as hard as picking cotton” - Wynton Marsalis

19. “But she has gathered that Americans, in spite of their public declarations of affection, in spite of their miniskirts and bikinis, in spite of their hand-holding on the street and lying on top of each other on the Cambridge Common, prefer their privacy.” - Jhumpa Lahiri

20. “...that in spite of living in a mansion an American is not above wearing a pair of secondhand pants, bought for fifty cents.” - Jhumpa Lahiri

21. “After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro... two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.” - W.E.B. DuBois

22. “Your life can be different, Young Ju. Study and be strong. In America, women have choices.” - An Na

23. “Finally, the president added, 'The American people are idealists, but they also want their leaders to be realistic...” - Bob Woodward

24. “He will know from and early age that failure is not disgrace. It's just a pitch that you missed, and you'd better get ready for the next one. The next one might be the shot heard round the world. My son and I are Americans, we prepare for glory by failing until we don't.” - Craig Ferguson

25. “When the average American says, “I’m starving,” it is a prelude to a midnight raid on a well-stocked refrigerator or a sudden trip to the nearest fast food restaurant.” - Carolyn Custis James

26. “They were a strange and mercantile people, these Americans. One never knew what they might come up with next.” - Lauren Willig

27. “Despite a few exceptions, I have found that Americans are now far more willing to learn new names, just as they're far more willing to try new ethnic foods... It's like adding a few new spices to the kitchen pantry.” - Firoozeh Dumas

28. “I always, always got to be the last man standing.” - Scott Snyder

29. “That's what everyone thinks--they think being a cop is about punishing people for doing wrong. But that's not true. You know it isn't. It's about believing in people, believing in the good. In the will of people to do what's right despite their own instincts.” - Scott Snyder

30. “In my time first cousins did not meet like strangers. But we are learning modesty from the Americans, and old English ways are too gross for us.” - Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

31. “There are many ways to honor America. This book is mine. I have completed this journey of self-education in the belief that the most terrifying possibility since 9/11 has not been terrorism--as frightening as that is--but the prospect that Americans will give up their rights in pursuing the chimera of security.” - David K. Shipler

32. “American cities are like badger holes, ringed with trash--all of them--surrounded by piles of wrecked and rusting automobiles, and almost smothered in rubbish. Everything we use comes in boxes, cartons, bins, the so-called packaging we love so much. The mountain of things we throw away are much greater than the things we use.” - John Steinbeck

33. “You can learn English online” - Brian Daniel

34. “Do you know what Ed Gein said about women?"[...]"'When I see a pretty girl walking down the street I think two things. One part of me wants to take her out and talk to her and be real nice and sweet and treat her right.'" I stop finish my J&B in one swallow."What does the other part of him think?" Hamlin asks tentatively."What her head would look like on a stick” - Bret Easton Ellis

35. “Canada is the essence of not being. Not English, not American, it is the mathematic of not being. And a subtle flavour - we're more like celery as a flavour.” - Mike Myers

36. “It may be underfunded and at times mismanaged, but the [Endangered Species] Act is an unprecedented attempt to delegate human-caused extinction to the chapters of history we would rather not revisit: the Slave Trade, the Indian Removal Policy, the subjection of women, child labor, segregation. The Endangered Species Act is a zero-tolerance law: no new extinctions. It keeps eyes on the ground with legal backing-the gun may be in the holster most of the time, but its available if necessary to keep species from disappearing. I discovered in my travels that a law protecting all animals and plants, all of nature, might be as revolutionary-and as American-as the Declaration of Independence.” - Joe Roman

37. “The 21st chapter gives the novel the quality of genuine fiction, an art founded on the principle that human beings change. ----- "A Clockwork Orange Resucked" intro to first full American version 1986” - Anthony Burgess

38. “Second-hand American was spreading over him in patches, like mange or lichen. He was infested, garbled, and I couldn't help him: it would take such time to heal, unearth him, scrape down to where he was true.” - Margaret Atwood

39. “The Pi Betas had accepted the fact that Rose was Mexican, but it was obvious they would just as soon ignore it. And they seemed to assume Rose wanted to do that, too. The other girls might not be overtly disturbed by the fact that Rose was a chicana, but they certainly were not going to encourage her to explore her heritage. No, if Rose joined the Pi Betas, she would have to deny the biggest part of herself. She would have to become completely American.” - Francine Pascal

40. “People are invariably surprised to hear me say I am both an atheist and an agnostic, as if this somehow weakens my certainty. I usually reply with a question like, 'Well, are you a Republican or an American?' The two words serve different concepts and are not mutually exclusive. Agnosticism addresses knowledge; atheism addresses belief. The agnostic says, 'I don't have a knowledge that God exists.' The atheist says, 'I don't have a belief that God exists.' You can say both things at the same time. Some agnostics are atheistic and some are theistic.” - Dan Barker

41. “We Americans... like change. It is at once our weakness and our strength.” - W. Somerset Maugham

42. “...am so deeply impressed with the fair mindedness and tolerance of the American people...” - Virchand Raghavji Gandhi

43. “It is good for a student to be poor. Getting and spending, the typical American college student lays waste his powers. Work and contemplation don't mix, and university days ought to be days of contemplation.” - Russell Kirk

44. “While you’re alive there’s no time for minor amazements.” - Alice Fulton

45. “All children should be taught to unconditionally accept, approve, admire, appreciate, forgive, trust, and ultimately, love their own person.” - Asa Don Brown

46. “A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let's have rage. What's needed is a unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury.” - Lance Morrow

47. “There is no happiness like mine.I have been eating poetry.” - Mark Strand

48. “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

49. “I have said that there is no "average" American. That is due to the circumstance that the people of the United States differ from each as widely as the parts they live in. The New Yorker is a different specimen of man from the Westerner; the latter is entirely different again from the people of Texas. The Middle West, such States for instance as Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska or Iowa, have an entirely different psychology from that of Florida or Lower California. Their habits of life, their modes of thought, even their language is different. Still further, it must also be considered that millions of foreigners and descendants of foreign born people live in the United States and are part of the entire population that is known as "American". Add to this more than 10 million negroes, not to mention the score of different Indian (red-skin) tribes, who are the real, indigenous Americans. In this conglomeration of races it is impossible to speak of the "average" American, nor can any adequate estimate of American psychology be made on such a basis.” - Alexander Berkman

50. “American farmers produced 600 more calories per person per day in 2000 than they did in 1980. But some calories got cheaper than others: Since 1980, the price of sweeteners and added fats (most of them derived, respectively, from subsidized corn and subsidized soybeans), dropped 20 percent, while the price of fresh fruits and vegetables increased by 40 percent.” - Michael Pollan

51. “Country music is the poetry of the American spirit.” - Steve Maraboli

52. “You're three or four different men but each of them out in the open. Like all Americans.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald