American Quotes

There is a homely adage which runs Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far. If the American nation will speak softly and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly efficient navy the Monroe Doctrine will go far.

Criticizing TV is second only to watching TV as an American pastime.

RED-SKIN n. A North American Indian whose skin is not red at least not on the outside.

Someday America will have its very own commercial-free TV and radio station devoted to only one thing: to teach people in their homes all the essentials of personal achievement.

My first American ancestor gentlemen was an Indianan early Indian. Your ancestors skinned him alive and I am an orphan. All those Salem witches were ancestors of mine. Your people made it tropical for them.... The first slave brought into New England out of Africa was an ancestor of minefor I am a mixed breed an infinitely shaded and exquisite Mongrel.

If America is to be run by the people it is the people who must think. And we do not need to put on sackcloth and ashes to think. Nor should our minds work like a sundial which records only sunshine. Our thinking must square against some lessons of history some principles of government and morals if we would preserve the rights and dignity of men to which this nation is dedicated.

To watch an American on a beach or crowding into a subway or buying a theater 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 o a willingness to let other people have and assert their own lively and even offensive character. They are a tough race in this.

LIMB n. The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.

The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the hearts and minds of the people?. This radical change in the principles opinions sentiments and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.

TRUST n. In American politics a large corporation composed in greater part of thrifty working men widows of small means orphans in the care of guardians and the courts with many similar malefactors and public enemies.