Europe will never be like America. Europe is a product of history. America is a product of philosophy.

-Margaret Thatcher

“Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people in order to betray them.”

~Joseph Story

America is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world.

~Dinesh D'Souza

“I think the most un-American thing you can say is, 'You can't say that.'”

~ Garrison Keillor

“America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: America is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn't standing still.”

~E. E. Cummings

“We [Americans] are the lavishest and showiest and most luxury-loving people on the earth; and at our masthead we fly one true and honest symbol, the gaudiest flag the world has ever seen."

~Mark Twain

“America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to "the common good", but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes”

~Ayn Rand

“I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”

~ James Arthur Baldwin

“What the people want is very simple - they want an America as good as its promise.”

~ Barbara Jordan

“Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, and hardihood—the virtues that made America. The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life.”

~Theodore Roosevelt

There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.

~Judith Martin

America is a country that doesn't know where it is going but is determined to set a speed record getting there.

~Laurence J. Peter

America is not merely a nation but a nation of nations.

~Lyndon B. Johnson

I don't measure America by its achievement but by its potential.

~Shirley Chisholm

Intellectually, I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country.

~Sinclair Lewis

I just want to say this. I want to say it gently but I want to say it firmly: There is a tendency for the world to say to America, "the big problems of the world are yours, you go and sort them out," and then to worry when America wants to sort them out.

~Tony Blair

America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses.

~Woodrow Wilson

Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American.

~Malcolm X