Top 100 Great American Quotes
#1. Mrs. Nixon and I share the sorrow of millions of Americans at the death of Louis Armstrong. One of the architects of an American art form, a free and individual spirit, and an artist of worldwide fame, his great talents and magnificent spirit added richness and pleasure to all our lives.
Richard M. Nixon
#2. Maya Angelou, the famous African American poet, historian, and civil rights activist who is hailed be many as one of the great voices of contemporary literature, believes a struggle only makes a person stronger.
Michael N. Castle
#3. We are now in the Me Decade - seeing the upward roll of the third great religious wave in American history.
Tom Wolfe
#4. One single great player doesn't make anything for a team; it has to be a team. I think [American] football is the greatest team sport there is because you have to depend on your brother next to you.
Tim Tebow
#5. I think America did a great job. I think Carrie Underwood fits the bill of American Idol. She's a wonderful girl, and she's gonna have a great career.
Bo Bice
#6. We need to give everybody a chance, treat everybody with respect, and let them share in this great American dream that we have.
John Kasich
#7. I have great faith in the intelligence of the American viewer and reader to put two and two together and come up with four.
Jim Lehrer
#8. A peculiarity of the American historical sensibility allows us to be proud of great-grandfathers (or even grandfathers) who lived in crushing poverty, while the poverty of a father is too close for comfort.
Patricia Hampl
#9. I believe that the future is determined by the great public universities. They educate 80 percent of the students and make the American Dream available.
Gordon Gee
#10. Dagwood Bumstead was a great unrecognized hero of American literature. He showed up every day, he got knocked down every day, he never got to eat his sandwich every day, the dog jumped on him every day, his wife was giving him a hard time and he showed up every day.
James L. Brooks
#11. I'm honored to be at the side of Michele Bachmann. She is a great congresswoman. She is a great human being, and she is a true American patriot.
Jon Voight
#12. The only authors whom I acknowledge as American are the journalists. They, indeed, are not great writers, but they speak the language of their countrymen, and make themselves heard by them.
Alexis De Tocqueville
#13. My style of music is the great American songbook meets the pop world of the Seventies and Eighties.
Barry Manilow
#14. American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.
Gore Vidal
#15. The Trail of Tears has a great deal of meaning for every person of American Indian ancestry, whether they are Cherokee or not. For me, it has always stood for what is best and worst about the history of the United States.
Joseph Bruchac
#16. I really feel that my life story is a continuation of the Great American Dream - the immigrant who comes to this country and is allowed to excel. How many other countries would let me do that?
Friedrich St. Florian
#17. It was great to do August Rush and have all the challenges of playing that character, especially the American accent for the first time and also playing the guitar and the conducting I had to do.
Freddie Highmore
#18. An important document of the paper of record at a crucial, make-or-break juncture in its long, glorious history, and a love letter to the dying art form that is the great American newspaper.
Nathan Rabin
#19. Isadore [Duncan], who had an un-American genius for art, for organizing love, maternity, politics and pedagogy on a great personal scale, had also an un-American genius for grandeur.
Janet Flanner
#20. I was saving the name of 'Geisel' for the Great American Novel.
Dr. Seuss
#21. Right now the best way that I can impact the world is through entertainment. One day, and that day will come, I can impact the world through politics. The great news is that I am American, therefore I can become President. But don't forget: I am G.I. Joe.
Dwayne Johnson
#22. Jake Johnson wanted to make clear that he was the great American actor, not just the funny guy on 'New Girl.'
Colin Trevorrow
#23. The great thing about not being American is that you don't assume you know what a Southern accent sounds like, so you have to be specific.
Cate Blanchett
#24. When I did 'Bird,' it was a surprise to some people, first because I wasn't in it and second because most of the films I'd been doing were cop movies or westerns or adventure films, so to be doing one about Charlie Parker, who was a great influence on American music, was a great thrill for me.
Clint Eastwood
#25. The American people are among the most productive in the world. We have the best technologies. We have great universities. We have entrepreneurs.
Ben Bernanke
#26. It is not about promoting a distinct and great American culture because today's Democrat Party does not believe in one.
Rush Limbaugh
#27. The great thing about 'The Office' and it being single-camera and the documentary style is that it's mostly a comedy, but 10 percent of it is, we get to show the existential angst that exists in the American workplace.
Rainn Wilson
#28. I think American Idol is a great career launcher. A blessing for all of us.
LaToya London
#29. Surprisingly, it was not an American but a British company that opened an amusement park in 2007 called Dickens World, located in the English county of Kent, complete with an Ebenezer Scrooge Haunted House, a Great Expectations Boat Ride and the as-advertised 'costumed Dickensian characters.'
Matthew Pearl
#30. You know, I think that President Obama is a person who has a great relationship with a number of people. Colin Powell does, too. I think Colin Powell is a fine American, a great leader and sees things in President Obama that he agrees with. He's entitled to have his opinion.
Pete Sessions
#31. Panama's a really wonderful country. There's obviously the Panama Canal, which brings a lot of tourism, and a huge American influence; it's just a mix of so many great things: African, Caribbean, Latin American Spanish, all kinds of influences there.
J. August Richards
#32. Well, I think the great tragedy in American politics is what is legal, not what is illegal.
Jack Abramoff
#33. I wish we could get a national buddy network going. It would be a great thing for the American people.
Bart Starr
#34. Satan is attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition.
Rick Santorum
#35. It was helpful to have the American troops there in great strength. They knew there'd be consequences if they didn't move back. Now, there has been some removal of the foreign forces.
Warren Christopher
#36. The office of President is a great one; to every true American it seems the greatest on earth. And to me, as I was engaged in weaving a background of music for the pageantry of it, there came a deeper realization of the effect of that office on the man.
John Philip Sousa
#37. If you destroyed the underpinnings of this great American sport, you are a hated, ugly, detestable person.
Curt Flood
#38. I was never pegged to be the next great American tennis player by any means. I wasn't a prodigy. I'm a late bloomer. Whatever happens, I'm proud of what I've done.
John Isner
#39. One of the great threats to our national security is social cohesion. If people no longer believe that you can start out anywhere and end up at the top successfully in America, that the American dream is part of the past, I think that erodes a sense of belief and confidence in our nation.
Joel Klein
#40. In this nation, the greatest of all nations, there are no second-class families. That is our great American conviction.
Benjamin Todd Jealous
#41. That business we started with 10 people has now grown into a great American success story.
Mitt Romney
#42. I still have a great deal of faith in our political system and a great deal of faith in the American people and voter.
Sharron Angle
#43. The Roaring Twenties were the period of that Great American Prosperity which was built on shaky foundations.
J. Paul Getty
#44. In order to do 'Amores Perros,' I had to skip some time at drama school, so the director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu came up with a great Latin American solution, which was to say I had a tropical disease and had to stay in Mexico for a while. Everyone believed me.
Gael Garcia Bernal
#45. I see great things in baseball. It's our game - the American game.
Walt Whitman
#46. It's not a natural process, 'American Idol,' but it does great things for the people that are on that show. If you don't walk away from it with some kind of positive outlook or find an opportunity to come from it, then I feel like that's a choice.
Crystal Bowersox
#47. The circumstances of everyday life were too demanding-and in American's great cities, appalling.
Charles E. Rosenberg
#48. The three great American vices seem to be efficiency, punctuality, and the desire for achievement and success. They are the things that make the Americans so unhappy and so nervous.
Lin Yutang
#49. I would say to people is, that investigation, as it has already been stated, is a marathon and not a sprint. But it is one of great concern to the American people. And so we're committed to keeping people informed.
Barack Obama
#50. My influence is probably more from American crime writers than any Europeans. And I hardly read any Scandinavian crime before I started writing myself. I wasn't a great crime reader to begin with.
Jo Nesbo
#51. The American dream means that you have the chance to work hard, get an education and do great things for yourself, for your kids. The great thing in American is it doesn't matter what your last name is, doesn't matter if you're wealthy.
Bobby Jindal
#52. Jefferson, incidentally, was also a great adventurer with foods. Among his many other accomplishments, he was the first person in America to slice potatoes lengthwise and fry them. So as well as being the author of the Declaration of Independence, he was also the father of the American French fry.
Bill Bryson
#53. Bill Russell is one of the great names in basketball, an all-American ... and the only athlete to ever win an NCAA Championship, an Olympic Gold Medal, and a professional championship all in the same year-1956 ... But Bill Russell had this one problem: He threw up before every game.
John Eliot
#54. Planning is for the world's great cities, for Paris, London, and Rome, for cities dedicated, at some level, to culture. Detroit, on the other hand, was an American city and therefore dedicated to money, and so design had given way to expediency.
Jeffrey Eugenides
#55. Noir is dead for me because historically, I think it's a simple view. I've taken it as far as it can go. I think I've expanded on it a great deal, taken it further than any other American novelist.
James Ellroy
#56. For me, Fitzgerald was one of the great American writers of the last century; a wordsmith, a storyteller, a perfectionist.
Robert Littell
#57. It is one of history's great tragedies that American conservatism, born in part in resistance to Soviet torture, should end by endorsing it in America, by Americans.
Andrew Sullivan
#58. The great and admirable strength of America consists in this, that America is truly the American people.
Jacques Maritain
#59. In 2005, I had the great honor of playing Shailene Woodley's mother in 'Felicity: An American Girl Adventure.' I was immediately impressed by her work ethic, both on and off set.
Marcia Gay Harden
#60. I think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, first of all, has got to be put into the context of being an American cultural showcase. It's there to be a museum showcase of all that's great about American music.
Ian Anderson
#61. I think a lot of people see, obviously, the business side of my father. But, I mean, he's just a great guy. We enjoyed the holidays so much. To be able to spend time with him when he's not necessarily working or not doing the political thing, I mean, he's much more of a blue collar American.
Donald Trump Jr.
#62. I was just very interested in the American frontier and the growth of capitalism - those enormous fortunes that were being made, more often than not, on the blood of poor people, black people, Indian people. They were the ones who paid very dearly for those great fortunes.
Peter Matthiessen
#63. The Amish can resist Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, pornography, ice-cold margaritas on tropical beaches, designer drugs, fast cars (actually, all cars), thong underwear, American Idol and sneakers. But they can't resist the bicycle. This is because the bicycle is a Truly Great Invention. A
BikeSnobNYC
#64. We have great information. They're going to welcome us. It'll be like the American Army going through the streets of Paris. They're sitting there ready to form a new government. The people will be so happy with their freedoms that we'll probably back ourselves out of there within a month or two.
Dick Cheney
#65. The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
W. Somerset Maugham
#66. The actors in Britain are incredible, and I didn't appreciate that until I got there. They interpret your words and you realize how deliberate and thoughtful they are. There are great American actors, too, don't get me wrong, but the technique that British actors have is something really special.
Frank Spotnitz
#67. My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon. So long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have a right to the soil. Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away
Black Hawk
#68. When an American asks for the cooperation of his fellow citizens, it is seldom refused; and I have often seen it afforded spontaneously and with great good will.
Alexis De Tocqueville
#69. Community colleges are the great American invention in terms of education,
Eduardo J. Padron
#70. I believe in standardizing automobiles. I do not believe in standardizing human beings. Standardization is a great peril which threatens American culture.
Albert Einstein
#71. The death of JFK to the resignation of Richard Nixon marked a great turning point in American life.
Pierre Salinger
#72. What makes it frustrating is when a director or a studio head doesn't see me for the same part that they'll see, let's say, Drew Barrymore for. Drew's a great friend of mine. But it's like, "No, we want more of an American type of girl."
Eva Mendes
#73. Jazz music is as American as it gets, and so is the U.S. Postal Service. A Miles Davis stamp is a perfect marriage of two great American institutions.
Henry Rollins
#74. The American people likewise want to see enforcement first, no tricks, no triggers, no amnesty, enforcing existing laws and closing loopholes to reaffirm that our great Republic is, in fact, a nation of laws.
J. D. Hayworth
#75. I know a lot of writers who would much rather be writing the Great American Novel, but they've got bills to pay and alimony, and so they take a job at a less-than-reputable paper. You know, you do what you gotta do.
Eric Stoltz
#76. Successfully reframing the climate debate in the United States from one based on environmental values to one based on health values ... holds great promise to help American society better understand and appreciate the risks of climate change ...
George Mason
#77. Nothing in our daily life offers more of the comfort of continuity, the generational connection of belonging to a vast and complicated American family, the powerful sense of home, the freedom from time's constraints, and the great gift of accumulated memory than does our National Pastime.
Ken Burns
#79. When I first got back from the war, I said, 'I'm gonna write the Great American Novel about the Vietnam War.' So I sat down and wrote 1,700 pages of sheer psychotherapy drivel. It was first person, and there would be pages about wet socks and cold feet.
Karl Marlantes
#80. My great-grandfather fought with the Colonial Army in New England in the American Revolution.
W.E.B. Du Bois
#81. I'm going to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great.
Barack Obama
#82. The great responsibility that we have today is to put the poor and the near poor back on front of the American agenda.
Jesse Jackson
#83. Tom Paine was a great American visionary. His book, Common Sense, sold a couple of hundred thousand copies in a population of four or five million. That means it was a best seller for years. People were thoughtful then. Hope is one thing. But you need to have hope with thought.
Studs Terkel
#84. President Bush threw out the first pitch Monday at Cincinnati's great American ball park. 18 Iraqis were killed.
Amy Poehler
#85. She's the latest freshest fruit of our great American evolution. She's the self-made girl!
( ... )
Well, to begin with, the self-made girl's a new feature. That, however, you know. In the second place she isn't self-made at all. We all help to make her, we take such an interest in her.
Henry James
#86. Surrounded by the self -sufficiency of American culture, we can convince ourselves that we have what it takes to achieve something great.
David Platt
#87. The American women are very pretty and have great simplicity of character, and the extreme neatness of their appearance is truly delightful: cleanliness is everywhere even more studiously attended to here than in England.
Marquis De Lafayette
#88. Our resources may be finite, but our will is infinite, and I am confident that if we come together and summon that great American spirit once again, we will meet the challenges of our time and write the next great chapter in our American story.
Barack Obama
#89. The great thing about the British SAS was that they viewed war the same way the American Special Operations community did. You didn't win by thinking inside the box and following someone else's rules. You turned the box upside down and made your own rules, no matter what the enemy threw at you.
Brad Thor
#90. Shopping and buying and getting and having comprise the Great American Addiction. No one is immune. When the underclass riots in this country they don't kill policemen and politicians, they steal merchandise. How embarrassing.
George Carlin
#92. Americans are very easygoing people. If the added attention and great visibility that I have been able to generate can help open doors and expose more Chinese to American values and the American way of life, that is great.
Gary Locke
#93. In the past the great majority of minority voters, in Ohio and other places that means African American voters, cast a large percentage of their votes during the early voting process.
John Lewis
#94. The production of obscurity in Paris compares to the production of motor cars in Detroit in the great period of American industry.
Ernest Gellner
#95. There was something wonderful about a blank sheet of notepaper. The lines were there, just waiting to be filled, and the page could turn into anything from a grocery list to the opening of The Great American Novel. The possibilities were endless.
Joanne Fluke
#96. As time would prove, he had written one of the great, enduring documents of the American Revolution. The constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the oldest functioning written constitution in the world.
David McCullough
#97. I'm also working on another independent film called Roxanne, Roxanne, about Roxanne Shante, who was one of the first African American battle rappers from Brooklyn. It is produced by Forest Whitaker and Pharrell [williams], so I'm really in great hands.
Nia Long
#98. The great American game should be an unrelenting war of nerves.
Ty Cobb
#99. I don't think Jennifer Lawrence deserves to be in this category [leading role]? Joy is a great movie, obviously. She's a great actress and I don't want to take anything from her, but it ain't American Hustle.
Bun B.
#100. Small business in America is what fuels the American economy. We need more small business to assist us in creating a great nation and in creating more jobs. It's this frontier that is endless in terms of opportunity and potential.
Debbi Fields
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