"I always tell people, if you really truly to learn about America, talk to black women. Yeah, 'cause... unlike everybody else, black women cannot afford to fuck around and find out."

"Tech is a cultural fork of the US establishment, just as the US itself was a fork of the British Empire. It’s the same root, different branches."

"We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. There is not a liberal America and a conservative America. There is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America. There's the United States of America."

"My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too. And whether our forebears were strangers who crossed the Atlantic, or the Pacific, or the Rio Grande, we are here only because this country welcomed them in, and taught them that to be an American is about something more than what we look like, or what our last names are, or how we worship. What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to an ideal, that all of us are created equal, and all of us have the chance to make of our lives what we will. That’s the country our parents and grandparents and generations before them built for us. That’s the tradition we must uphold. That’s the legacy we must leave for those who are yet to come."

"What could more profoundly vindicate the idea of America than plain and humble people? Unsung, the downtrodden, the dreamers not of high station, not born to wealth or privilege, not of one religious tradition but many, coming together to shape their country’s course? What greater expression of faith in the American experiment than this, what greater form of patriotism is there than the belief that America is not yet finished, that we are strong enough to be self-critical, that each successive generation can look upon our imperfections and decide that it is in our power to remake this nation to more closely align with our highest ideals?Our work is never done. The American experiment in self-government gives work and purpose to each generation."

"But today, more than 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, more than 50 years after the end of 'separate but equal', when it comes to getting an education, too many of our young people just can’t be bothered. Today, instead of walking miles every day to school, they're sitting on couches for hours playing video games, watching T.V. Instead of dreaming of being a teacher or a lawyer or a business leader, they're fantasizing about being a baller or a rapper. Right now, one in three African American students are dropping out of high school. Only one in five African Americans between the ages of 25 and 29 has gotten a college degree; one in five."

"From the beginning, America — like most countries — was built on polite fictions by men who could somehow hold in their heads the idea that all men were created equal at the exact same time that they were drawing up the three-fifths compromise."

"The United States performs very well in many measures of well-being relative to most other countries in the Better Life Index. The United States ranks at the top in housing, and income and wealth. They rank above the average in health status, jobs and earnings, education and skills, social connections, personal security, subjective well-being, environmental quality, and civic engagement. Money, while it cannot buy happiness, is an important means to achieving higher living standards. In the United States, the average household net-adjusted disposable income per capita is USD 41,071 a year, more than the OECD average of USD 29,016 a year, and the highest figure in the OECD... In general, Americans are more satisfied with their lives than the OECD average. When asked to rate their general satisfaction with life on a scale from 0 to 10, people in the United States gave it a 6.9 grade, higher than the OECD average of 6.5."

"I listen to people talking about this universal breakdown we are in and I marvel at their stupid cowardice. It is so obvious that they deliberately cheat themselves because their fear of change won't let them face the truth. They don't want to understand what has happened to them. All they want is to start the merry-go-round of blind greed all over again. They no longer know what they want this country to be, what they want it to become, where they want it to go. It has lost all meaning for them except as pig-wallow. And so their lives as citizens have no beginnings, no ends. They have lost the ideal of the Land of the Free. Freedom demands initiative, courage, the need to decide what life must mean to oneself. To them, that is terror. They explain away their spiritual cowardice by whining that the time for individualism is past, when it is their courage to possess their own souls which is dead — and stinking! No, they don't want to be free. Slavery means security — of a kind, the only kind they have courage for. It means they need not to think. They have only to obey orders..."

"Wherever there's injustice, oppression, and suffering, America will show up six months late and bomb the country next to where it's happening."

"Now we are doing imperialism with a black face."

"U.S. President Barack Obama has nominated Korean-American Jim Yong Kim, the president of Dartmouth College, as the next head of the World Bank. Obama's selection of Kim drew praise both in the U.S. and here in Korea. Kim moved to the U.S. with his parents when he was five and is an American citizen, but Koreans like to think of him as one of their own. Americans also congratulated Kim, who became the first Asian-American president of an Ivy League university and nominee for the next head of the World Bank. Critics voiced concerns whether Kim, a medical doctor by training, would be able to handle the developmental assistance the World Bank is known for, but nobody had any problem with his ethnic background. Yet the exact opposite is happening here in Korea right now. The Philippine-born naturalized Korean citizen Jasmine Lee, who became a Saenuri Party lawmaker, has been the victim of malicious attacks on the Internet since the April 11 general election. People have been posting malicious comments about her on Twitter and other social networks, somehow linking her to the grisly murder of a young woman recently killed by an ethnic Korean from China...As a party list candidate, Lee has never made any campaign pledges. But somebody posted false rumors on the Internet that Lee had promised major benefits for foreign migrant workers and brides using taxpayers' money. Lee married a Korean and legally acquired Korean citizenship in 1998. After being widowed in 2010, she formed a group supporting foreign wives of Korean men and also worked at Seoul City Hall helping such women. She even played a small role in the movie 'Punch' about multicultural families in Korea and appealed to Koreans to pay more attention to people like her. It is perfectly fair to question her ability to serve as a lawmaker. But the criticism against her on the Internet reflects nothing but xenophobia. Lee will serve as a lawmaker representing the 200,000 foreign wives of Korean men who live here. They are all Korean citizens. It does not befit one of the world's 10 largest exporters to get excited about the achievements of an American who comes from Korea but on the other hand to react with hostility to an immigrant who achieves something here. Such double standards are unacceptable."

"It is a truism that America has become a more diverse country. It is also a beautiful thing to watch. Visitors from other countries, particularly those having trouble incorporating different ethnic groups and faiths, are amazed that we manage to pull it off. Not perfectly, of course, but certainly better than any European or Asian nation today. It’s an extraordinary success story."

"Sixty years ago, at dawn on June 25, the Korean War broke out when Communist North Korea invaded the Republic of Korea. In response, 16 member countries of the United Nations, including the United States, joined with the Republic of Korea to defend freedom. Over the next three years of fighting, about 37,000 Americans lost their lives. They fought for the freedom of Koreans they did not even know, and thanks to their sacrifices, the peace and democracy of the republic were protected... On the 60th anniversary of the Korean War, I remain grateful to America for having participated in the war. At that time, the Republic of Korea was one of the most impoverished countries, with an annual per capita income of less than $40. In 2009, my country became a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Development Assistance Committee, the first aid recipient to become a donor and in only one generation."

"That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

"I believe in specific ideas and I believe that those ideas have consequences. I believe in the individual, in less government so as to allow that individual maximum freedom to create and achieve; that societies which are founded on restraining the government rather than the individual are optimum; that the individual is smart enough to solve his own problems and does not need to depend on big government for resolution of all his problems; that my belief in individuality and limited government does not preclude me from advocating the requisite amount of government authority to ensure law and order in our society; that our ability to enjoy peace vis-á-vis other nations is directly related to our military strength; that the best that we can hope for in an imperfect world will most likely be achieved by maximizing individual economic and political freedoms and, conversely, that social utopia cannot be achieved through governmental largesse and socialistic redistributions of wealth; that compassion is defined not by how many people are on the government dole but by how many people no longer need governmental assistance; that political and economic freedom are inextricably intertwined; that society owes its citizens equality of opportunity but cannot guarantee them equality of outcome; that strong, wholesome family values are at the very core of a productive, prosperous and peaceful society; that those values cannot be instilled by government but can indeed be sucked dry and eliminated by well-intentioned but destructive governmental programs; that human life is sacred and that God placed man in a position of having dominion over nature; that environmental awareness is healthy, but that apocalyptic environmentalism based on disinformation and hysteria is destructive to society and man's best interests; that racial relations will not be enhanced or prejudice eliminated by governmental edict; that there is one God and that this country was established with that foundational belief; that our morality emanates from our Divine Creator; whose laws are not subject to amendment, modification, or recession by man; that certain fundamental differences between men and women exist in nature; that men and women are not at war and that their relationship should not be redefined by those who believe that we are; that the meaning of the establishment clause of the First Amendment should not be stretched beyond its intended dimensions by precluding voluntary prayer in our public schools; that the United States of America was founded on the beliefs I have just enunciated and that it is the greatest nation in the history of the world; and that the USA is the greatest nation, not because Americans are inherently superior but because its government was founded on principles which seek to allow maximum individual achievement."

"xcThe spread of slavery, I can not but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world—enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites—causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty—criticising the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest...Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the dust. Let us repurify it. Let us turn and wash it white, in the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution. Let us turn slavery from its claims of “moral right,” back upon its existing legal rights, and its arguments of 'necessity'. Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it; and there let it rest in peace. Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. Let north and south—let all Americans—let all lovers of liberty everywhere—join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it, that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations."

"I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. 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 pretence of loving liberty. To Russia, for instance, where despotism can be take pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."

"We are now a mighty nation, we are thirty, or about thirty millions of people, and we own and inhabit about one-fifteenth part of the dry land of the whole earth. We run our memory back over the pages of history for about eighty-two years and we discover that we were then a very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, with a vastly less extent of country, with vastly less of everything we deem desirable among men, we look upon the change as exceedingly advantageous to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon something that happened away back, as in some way or other being connected with this rise of prosperity. We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers; they were iron men, they fought for the principle that they were contending for; and we understood that by what they then did it has followed that the degree of prosperity that we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves. We feel more attached the one to the other, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men in the age, and race, and country in which we live for these celebrations. But after we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole...There is something else connected with it. We have besides these men—descended by blood from our ancestors—among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe—German, Irish, French and Scandinavian. Men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,' and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world...Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man, this race and that race and the other race being inferior and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal."

"The weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence. Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? If it can, I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I can help to save it. If it can't be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful. But, if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle. I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender it."

"One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute...This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse."

"All persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom."

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

"Afterward, Vogel invited the audience to come up and be photographed with the re-enactors. I didn't go. I was content just to look down the Mall on that beautiful day, now becoming comfortably warmer. Beyond the reflecting pools, behind the Washington Monument, I could see parts of the Grant sculptures and the wings of the Capitol behind them. It was all very imposing, as befits a great nation. In the aftermath of the morning's program, I was free to imagine, now that we let ourselves remember all of Lincoln's Second Inaugural, what if the United States could live up to its moral implications? What if we did construct a society with no unrequited toil? What if we did achieve a just and lasting peace with all nations? An impossible dream? Well, it was a patriotic occasion, and at a place where dreams have been dreamed before."

"In Australia, if you drive a red or yellow Bentley convertible down the street, everyone thinks 'What a wanker!' In America, you drive a red Bentley down the street, everyone thinks 'Nice car, mate! Well done!' There is just a different approach to success and to striving for success in America and that's the bit that I miss. Not that I have a yellow Bentley, nor do I want one. But, I do like that acceptance of people striving in America. That's the one thing I miss."

"When I first arrived in Jackson, which was July 4, 1963, there was a court order to integrate the parks in Jackson. But we couldn't even get two car loads to do that. It was, in a sense, a terrible defeat. The police arrested everybody when they did anything. You couldn't picket. The enemy was the police. It was a police state, that's all. The only police state that I've ever seen function with such efficiency that in this country there was no way of even getting to notice it."

"America will exist as a great nation for a long time to come. It has a vast store of economic and military capital that will take time to spend down even in the worst of circumstances and even under the worst policies."

"The country is frustrated with both parties. The reason for the frustration is lack of solutions."

"The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for the common liberties and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the late successful resistance of this country against the British arms will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments of the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."

"It is a settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute. The United States, while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none."

"The United States, having been the first to abolish within the extent of their authority the transportation of the natives of Africa into slavery, by prohibiting the introduction of slaves and by punishing their citizens participating in the traffic, cannot but be gratified at the progress made by concurrent efforts of other nations toward a general suppression of so great an evil."

"I've never met anyone who told me they were angry at China or France or Russia for failing to help them. Where people are desperate, it is still America they count on, whether they love or scorn it, and America they blame when aid does not come. They know that the United States is the one country with both the power and predilection to stand up for them."

"If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care for human beings."

"I am firm in my belief that American sportsmanship and attitude of fair play will judge citizenship and patriotism on the basis of action and achievement, and not on the basis of physical characteristics. Because I believe in America, and I trust she believes in me, and because I have received innumerable benefits from her, I pledge myself to do honor to her at all times and all places, to defend her against all enemies, foreign and domestic, to actively assume my duties and obligations as a citizen, cheerfully and without any reservations whatsoever, in the hope that I may become a better American in a greater America."

"America stand up. We love our military and we love our country but we fucking hate Trump."

"Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that."

"Through the violence, chaos and heartache of war, through deprivation and cruelty and loss, we are always Americans, and different, stronger and better than those who would destroy us."

"The American public thinks someone is watching over them. Generally they think someone’s in charge and going to make sure bad things don’t happen. Our oversight system in our country is so broken and so untrustworthy"

"Riley: “No stealing”? Don’t you always say theft in America is justified because the whole country is stolen land?"

"By the time of the Gettysburg Address, in November 1863, the North was fighting for a 'new birth of freedom' to transform the Constitution written by the founding fathers, under which the United States had become the world's largest slaveholding country, into a charter of emancipation for a republic where, as the northern version of 'The Battle Cry of Freedom' put it, 'Not a man shall be a slave'."

"After US troops have withdrawn from Afghanistan, Europe must define its own security interests more clearly. It has been seen that America is no longer unconditionally ready to take on a leadership role anywhere in the world."

"America - a conservative country without any conservative ideology-appears now before the world a naked and arbitrary power, as, in the name of realism, its men of decision enforce their often crackpot definitions upon world reality. The second-rate mind is in command of the ponderously spoken platitude. In the liberal rhetoric, vagueness, and in the conservative mood, irrationality, are raised to principle. Public relations and the official secret, the trivializing campaign and the terrible fact clumsily accomplished, are replacing the reasoned debate of political ideas in the privately incorporated economy, the military ascendancy, and the political vacuum of modern America."

"The American elite does not have any real image of peace — other than as an uneasy interlude existing precariously by virtue of the balance of mutual fright. The only seriously accepted plan for peace is the full loaded pistol. In short, war or a high state of war-preparedness is felt to be the normal and seemingly permanent condition of the United States."

"I've got nothing against any individual American, except that there aren't any. They're always Irish-American, African-American–there's never an American-American you can blame!"

"I wasn't born in America, but I got here as fast as I could."

"America means fair play for all men."

"Far from there being a consensus on the acceptance of slavery, sectional differences between the north and the south about the practice of it existed, and were subject of political contentions, from the beginning of the American nation!"

"I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in our way."

"Look at the magnitude of this subject! One sixth of our population, in round numbers, not quite one sixth, and yet more than a seventh, about one sixth of the whole population of the United States are slaves! The owners of these slaves consider them property. The effect upon the minds of the owners is that of property, and nothing else, it induces them to insist upon all that will favorably affect its value as property, to demand laws and institutions and a public policy that shall increase and secure its value, and make it durable, lasting and universal. The effect on the minds of the owners is to persuade them that there is no wrong in it. The slaveholder does not like to be considered a mean fellow, for holding that species of property, and hence he has to struggle within himself and sets about arguing himself into the belief that Slavery is right. The property influences his mind."