This wholesale invasion of Americans’ and foreign citizens’ privacy does not contribute to our security; it puts in danger the very liberties we’re trying to protect.
—Daniel Ellsberg
Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.
—Louis D. Brandeis
Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic.
—Dan Rather
They call it the “American Dream” because you have to be asleep to believe it.
—George Carlin
America is a large friendly dog in a small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair.
—Arnold Toynbee
How hard it is for Americans, even Americans of goodwill, not to consider themselves the center of the universe.
—Simone de Beauvoir
John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. This helps explain why American culture is so hostile to the idea of limits, why voters during the last energy shortage rejected the sweater-wearing Jimmy Carter and elected Ronald Reagan who told them it was still "morning in America." Nowhere does the myth of progress have more fervent believers.
—Ronald Wright
I like America, just as everybody else does. I love America, I gotta say that. But America will be judged.
—Bob Dylan
America, thou half brother of the world, with something good and bad of every land.
—Philip James Bailey
Although the desire of acquiring the good things of this world is the prevailing passion of the American people, certain momentary outbreaks occur when their souls seem suddenly to burst the bonds of matter by which they are restrained and to soar impetuously toward heaven.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
The Americans have none of the irony of the English, none of their cool poise, none of their manner. But they do have friendliness. Where an Englishman would give you his card, an American would very likely give you his shirt.
—Raymond Chandler
America is so vast that almost everything said about it is likely to be true, and the opposite is probably equally true.
—James T. Farrell
There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.
—Judith Martin
I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him that if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.
—Mary "Mother" Jones
England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
—George Bernard Shaw