American Quotes

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

For more that three centuries American Negroes have been frustrated by day and bewilderment by night by unbearable injustice, and burdened with the ugly weight of discrimination. Forced to live with these shameful conditions, we are tempted to become bitter and retaliate with a corresponding hate. But if this happens, the new order we seek will be little more than a duplicate of the old order.

Let us therefore continue our triumphant march to the realization of the American dream.

The American people are infected with racism-that is the peril. Paradoxically, they are also infected with democratic ideals-that is the hope.

To end poverty, to extirpate prejudice, to free a tormented conscience, to make a tomorrow of justice, fair play, and creativity-all these are worthy of the American ideal.

Witnessing the drama of Negro progress elsewhere in the world, witnessing a level of conspicuous consumption at home exceeding anything in our history, it was natural that by 1963 Negroes would rise with resolution and demand a share of governing power, and living conditions measured by American standards rather than by the standards of colonial impoverishment.

The American Negro saw, in the land from which he had been snatched and thrown into slavery, a great pageant of political progress. He realized that just thirty years ago there were only three independent nations in the whole of Africa. He knew that by 1963 more than thirty-four African nations had risen from colonial bondage.

The American racial revolution has been a revolution to "get in"rather than to overthrow. We want a share in the American economy, the housing market, the educational system and the social opportunities. This goal itself indicates that a social change in America must be nonviolent.

For too long the depth of racism in American life has been underestimated. The surgery to extract it is necessarily complex and detailed.

Just as a doctor will occasionally reopen a wound, because a dangerous infection hovers beneath the half-healed surface, the revolution for human rights is opening up unhealthy areas in American life and permitting a new and wholesome healing to take place.

I never slept as soundly as the night following Pearl Harbor. For I knew that The American Race would now be entering the war and it would never be the same.

The American Constitution declares 'All men are born equal.' The British Socialist Party add: 'All men must be kept equal'.

It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future. Still, I avow my hope and faith, sure and inviolate, that in the days to come the British and American peoples will for their own safety and for the good of all walk together side by side in majesty, in justice, and in peace.

No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. I could not foretell the course of events. I do not pretend to have measured accurately the martial might of Japan, but now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! ... Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder.

We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.

I proceeded to a joint review of the British and American forces. There was a long march past in threes, during which the tune "United States Marines" bit so deeply into my memory that I could not get it out of my head.

When American military men approach some serious situation they are wont to write at the head of their directive the words "over-all strategic concept". There iswisdom in this, as it leads to clarity of thought....our American military colleagues, after having proclaimed their "over-all strategic concept" and computed availableresources, always proceed to the next step-namely, the method.

It is true that American thought is at least disinterested in matters which seem to relate to territorial acquisitions, but when wolves are about the shepherd mustguard his flock, even if he does not himself care for mutton.

All the girls over there in Ireland are well versed in American country music. Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline are like king and queen over there.

I'm just a singer, Elvis was the embodiment of the whole American culture.