You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world.... We are not a nation, so much as a world.

Herman Melville
About This Quote

We are not a nation, so much as a world. The words of John F. Kennedy during his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech at the Berlin Wall before he was shot, sum up for us the great idealism of American foreign policy. We are not nation-states, but rather peoples of the world struggling to make their own destinies in peace and freedom, respecting the integrity of each other's cultures.

And this is what makes us different from other nations. It is no accident that the only people to have successfully struggled for freedom all over the world have been Americans.

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