100 Quotes About United States Of America

The United States of America is a country in North America. It is the world's third-largest country by total area, and the world's fourth-largest by land area. It also has the world's third- or fourth-largest population depending on the metropolitan region, and the country is home to over 318 million people. The United States includes both densely populated cities with sprawling suburbs and rural areas Read more

The United States is considered a developed country because of its high standard of living and quality of life, its population density and economic productivity, as well as its dominant position in science and technology.

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Today I wore a pair of faded old jeans and a plain grey baggy shirt. I hadn't even taken a shower, and I did not put on an ounce of makeup. I grabbed a worn out black oversized jacket to cover myself with even though it is warm outside. I have made conscious decisions lately to look like less of what I felt a male would want to see. I want to disappear. Sierra D. Waters
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Trump’s America is not America: not today’s or tomorrow’s, but yesterday’s. Trump’s America is brutal, perverse, regressive, insular and afraid. There is no hope in it; there is no light in it. It is a vast expanse of darkness and desolation. And that is a vision of America that most of the people in this country cannot and will not abide. Charles M. Blow
3
We are going to win our freedom because both the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of the Almighty God are embodied in our echoing demands. So however difficult it is during this period, however difficult it is to continue to live with the agony and the continued existence of racism, however difficult it is to live amidst the constant hurt, the constant insult and the constant disrespect, I can still sing we shall overcome. We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. We shall overcome because Carlisle is right. "No lie can live forever." We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right. "Truth crushed to earth will rise again." We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right. "Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne."   Yet that scaffold sways the future. We shall overcome because the Bible is right.  "You shall reap what you sow." With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when all of God's children all over this nation - black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old negro spiritual, "Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank God Almighty, We are Free At Last. . Unknown
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The worst of it is that while we continue to sink deeper into the muck and mire that we’ve created, in the very descent itself we ignorantly declare that in reality we are rising. And until desperation has crippled us sufficiently to confess the lie that we are lifting ourselves out of this mess, and until the panic of utter hopelessness has driven us to completely surrender all of the pathetic contrivances that we’ve fashioned that have put us there, we will never realize that God has readied solid ground that stands but a single step away . Craig D. Lounsbrough
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It is truly horrible to understand yourself as the essential below of your country. It breaks too much of what we would like to think about ourselves, our lives, the world we move through and the people who surround us. The struggle to understand is our only advantage over this madness. TaNehisi Coates
6
The leaders and followers of the Harlem Renaissance were every bit as intent on using Black culture to help make the United States a more functional democracy as they were on employing Black culture to 'vindicate' Black people. Aberjhani
Empower yourselves with a good education, then get out there...
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Empower yourselves with a good education, then get out there and use that education to build a country worthy of your boundless promise. Michelle Obama
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We cannot play ostrich. Democracy just cannot flourish amid fear. Liberty cannot bloom amid hate. Justice cannot take root amid rage. America must get to work. In the chill climate in which we live, we must go against the prevailing wind. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust. We must dissent from a nation that has buried its head in the sand, waiting in vain for the needs of its poor, its elderly, and its sick to disappear and just blow away. We must dissent from a government that has left its young without jobs, education or hope. We must dissent from the poverty of vision and the absence of moral leadership. We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better. . Thurgood Marshall
Democracy doesn't mean spreading terror.
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Democracy doesn't mean spreading terror. DaShanne Stokes
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And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes--believes with all its heart--that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn't exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are. Colson Whitehead
11
Across the sea fat kings watched and were gleeful, that something begun so well had now gone off the rails (as down South similar kings watched), and if it went off the rails, so went the whole kit, forever, and if someone ever thought to start it up again, well, it would be said (and said truly): The rabble cannot manage itself. Well, the rabble could. The rabble would. He would lead the rabble in managing. The thing would be won. George Saunders
The seriousness of being part of Operation Desert Storm-the first...
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The seriousness of being part of Operation Desert Storm-the first major foreign crisis for the United States after the end of the Cold War- was never lost upon us. Carlos Wallace
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When Hughes writes, in the first two lines of his poem, “Let America be America again/ Let it be the dream it used to be, ” he acknowledges that America is primarily a dream, a hope, an aspiration, that may never be fully attainable, but that spurs us to be better, to be larger. He follows this with the repeated counterpoint, “America never was America to me, ” and through the rest of this remarkable poem he alternates between the oppressed and the wronged of America, and the great dreams that they have for their country, that can never be extinguished. Harry Belafonte
May we think of freedom not as the right to...
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May we think of freedom not as the right to do as we please but as the opportunity to do what is right. Peter Marshall
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Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country have been waged by many good as well as by evil men. Nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon but at other times and places the ends have been racial or territorial security, support of a dynasty or regime, and particular plans for saving souls. As first and moderate methods to attain unity have failed, those bent on its accomplishment must resort to an ever-increasing severity. Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard. It seems trite but necessary to say that the First Amendment to our Constitution was designed to avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings. There is no mysticism in the American concept of the State or of the nature or origin of its authority. We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority. If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. Robert H. Jackson
The birthplace of anarchy is the cemetery of freedom.
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The birthplace of anarchy is the cemetery of freedom. Craig D. Lounsbrough
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Cora had heard Michael recite the Declaration of Independence back on the Randall plantation many times, his voice drifting through the village like an angry phantom. She didn't understand the words, most of them at any rate, but 'created equal' was not lost on her. The white men who wrote it didn't understand it either, if 'all men' did not truly mean all men. Colson Whitehead
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The United States, almost alone today, offers the liberties and the privileges and the tools of freedom. In this land the citizens are still invited to write their plays and books, to paint their pictures, to meet for discussion, to dissent as well as to agree, to mount soapboxes in the public square, to enjoy education in all subjects without censorship, to hold court and judge one another, to compose music, to talk politics with their neighbors without wondering whether the secret police are listening, to exchange ideas as well as goods, to kid the government when it needs kidding, and to read real news of real events instead of phony news manufactured by a paid agent of the state. This is a fact and should give every person pause. E.B. White
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For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up. We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Franklin D. Roosevelt
Discrimination does not 'make America great.' It makes America weak.
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Discrimination does not 'make America great.' It makes America weak. DaShanne Stokes
Our democracy should aspire to be more democratic.
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Our democracy should aspire to be more democratic. DaShanne Stokes
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If this were a courageous country, it would ask Gloria to lead itsince she is sane and funny and beautiful and smartand the National Leaders we've always hadare not. When I listen to her talk about women's rightschildren's rightsmen's rights I think of the long line of Americans who should have been president, but weren't. Imagine Crazy Horse as president. Sojourner Truth.John Brown. Harriet Tubman. Black Elk or Geronimo.Imagine President Martin Luther King confrontingthe youthful "Oppie" Oppenheimer. Imagine PresidentMalcolm X going after the Klan. Imagine President StevieWonder dealing with the "Truly Needy."Imagine President Shirley Chisholm, Ron Dellums, or Sweet Honey in the Rockdealing with Anything.It is imagining to make us weep with frustration, as we languish under real estate dealers, killers, and bad actors. Alice Walker
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Both political parties have moved to the right during the neoliberal period. Today’s New Democrats are pretty much what used to be called “moderate Republicans.” The “political revolution” that Bernie Sanders called for, rightly, would not have greatly surprised Dwight Eisenhower.The fate of the minimum wage illustrates what has been happening. Through the periods of high and egalitarian growth in the ‘50s and ‘60s, the minimum wage–which sets a floor for other wages–tracked productivity. That ended with the onset of neoliberal doctrine. Since then, the minimum wage has stagnated (in real value). Had it continued as before, it would probably be close to $20 per hour. Today, it is considered a political revolution to raise it to $15. . Noam Chomsky
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The liberal press cannot question the basic doctrine of the state religion, that the United States is benevolent, even though often misguided in its innocence, that it labors to permit free choice, even though at times some mistakes are committed in the exuberance of its programs of international goodwill. We must believe that we "Americans" are always good, though, to be sure, fallible. Noam Chomsky
The USA is a beautiful country...when you take the corrupt...
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The USA is a beautiful country...when you take the corrupt corporations and their government minions out of the equation. Steven Magee
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One of the things, though, that has always afflicted the American reality and the American vision is this aversion to history. History is not something you read about in a book, history is not even the past–it’s the present. Because everybody operates, whether or not we know it, out of assumptions which are produced and produced only by our history. Now the history of this country is not bloodier than other countries, but it’s bloody. It is not more criminal than that of other countries, but it’s criminal. Or in short, it’s not worse than the history of France or England or any country we can name–but it’s different. James Baldwin
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The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered. Mitch Landrieu
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Intimidated, old traumas triggered, and fearing for my safety, I did what I felt I needed to do. Sierra D. Waters
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John was still making comments regarding violent things that he shouldn't, but I hoped he was just being a big mouth. Nobody was going to listen to me anyway. Sierra D. Waters
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He told me that if I hung up, he'd do it. He would commit suicide. He told me that if I called the cops he would kill every single one of them and I knew that he had the potential and the means to do it Sierra D. Waters
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No amount of me trying to explain myself was doing any good. I didn't even know what was going on inside of me, so how could I have explained it to them? Sierra D. Waters
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It is not a single crime when a child is photographed while sexually assaulted (raped.) It is a life time crime that should have life time punishments attached to it. If the surviving child is, more often than not, going to suffer for life for the crime(s) committed against them, shouldn't the pedophiles suffer just as long? If it often takes decades for survivors to come to terms with exactly how much damage was caused to them, why are there time limits for prosecution? . Sierra D. Waters
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The story of my birth that my mother told me went like this: "When you were coming out I wasn't ready yet and neither was the nurse. The nurse tried to push you back in, but I shit on the table and when you came out, you landed in my shit." If there ever was a way to sum things up, the story of my birth was it. Sierra D. Waters
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To be ignorant of the sacrifices of others that yielded the blessings I enjoy leaves me exchanging the reality of 'blessing' for the assumption of 'entitlement.' And once that happens, I will forfeit the reality of the former which will destroy the assumption of the latter. And in what terribly dark place will that now leave me? Craig D. Lounsbrough
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The "new" Anglo-American feminist theory argues that too little mothering, and, in particular, the absence of mother-son connection, is what engenders both sexism and traditional masculinity in men. (..) This perspective positions mothering as central to feminist politics in its insistence that true and lasting gender equality will occur only when boys are raised as the sons of mothers. As the early feminist script of mother-son connection required the denial of the mother's power and the displacement of her identity as mother, the new perspective affirms the maternal and celebrates mother-son connection. In this, it rewrites the patriarchal and early feminist narrative to give (..) voice and presence to the mother and make mother-son connection central to the redesign of both traditional masculinity and the larger patriarchal culture. . Andrea OReilly
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Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. James Madison
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It seems to me that America is constantly reinventing what "America" means. Ronald Reagan
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America is a great country. We have a lot to be proud of, and a lot to look forward to being proud of. But let's not ever forget to look back into the past, learn from it, and embrace it, for to deny the past is a dark path to go down. Lauren Lola
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Anything man can make, man can destroy. Jonathan Anthony Burkett
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For me and my friends, for people who think the way I do over there, for all ordinary Soviet citizens, America evokes a mixture of admiration and compassion.. You're a country of the future, a young country, with yet untapped possiblities, enormous territory, great breadth of spirit, generosity, magnanimity. But these qualities–strength, generosity, and magnanimity–are usually combined in a man and even in a whole country with trustfulness. And this has already done you a disservice several times. . Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Throughout human history, countries rise and fall. But not America--we continue to rise and rise, like dough, until Jesus bakes us in the fiery Afterscape of the Rapture. Stephen Colbert
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There appears to be a vast amount of confusion on this point, but I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be "accepted" by white people, still less to be loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don't wish to be beaten over the head by the whites every instant of our brief passage on this planet. White people in this country will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this -- which will not be tomorrow and will not be today and may very well be never -- the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed. Unknown
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I think it's terrible the way people don't share things in this country. I think it's a heartless government that will let one baby be born owning a big piece of the country, the way I was born, and let another baby be born without owning anything. The least a government could do, it seems to me, is to divide things up fairly among the babies. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
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I think this was a nice idea we had in this country and a nice landscape to experiment with. But I think there comes a time in almost any experimentation or idea, where you have to evaluate it, maybe our time has come. In the context of the real world, not just the American world but all around, we haven't done too well. We are not a very good advertisement for the idea we represented. If you lose one wheel of the car, you might be able to get to the side of the road, and some freaks can make it on two, but if you lose three, man, you're in serious trouble. I think we've lost three. Hunter S. Thompson
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Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples - while judging ourselves by our best intentions. And this has strained our bonds of understanding and common purpose. But Americans, I think, have a great advantage. To renew our unity, we only need to remember our values. We have never been held together by blood or background. We are bound by things of the spirit — by shared commitments to common ideals. George W. Bush
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Privilege is when your voice is the norm but still you claim to be unheard. DaShanne Stokes
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Trump didn't divide America. He just doused us with gasoline and fanned the flames. DaShanne Stokes
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There should be no bitterness or hate where the sole thought is the welfare of the United States of America. No man can occupy the office of President without realizing that he is President of all the people. Franklin D. Roosevelt
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I was profoundly impressed by my contact with these places which are and have always been, the wellsprings of your history. It makes one think that the men who created your country never lost sight of their moral bearings. They did not laugh at the absolute nature of the concepts of "good" and "evil." Their practical policies were checked against their moral compass. And how surprising it is that a practical policy computed on the basis of moral considerations turned out to be the most farsighted and the most salutary. This is true even though in the short term one may wonder: Why all this morality? Let's just get on with the immediate job. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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My father once told me that American democracy is a people’s democracy at heart, and that it therefore can be as great as the American people, or as fallible. It depends on all of us. But our system is more fragile than we know. To sustain it, we must always cherish the ideals on which it was founded, remain vigilant against the dark forces that threaten it, and actively engage in the process of making it work. . George Takei
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Ours was the first nation to be founded on the idea that all are created equal and all deserve equal treatment under the law. Despite our missteps and shortcomings, these ideals still inspire hope among the oppressed and give us pride in being Americans. Jimmy Carter
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Whether voting Republican or Democrat, the result is the same: A corrupt corporate government. Steven Magee
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One of the arguments that authoritarian governments use to ward off the call for greater political freedom is to argue that American-style democracy is no guarantee of good policy.. Over the years, I’ve grown used to these arguments, and my response has rarely wavered: Sure, we might make dumb choices sometimes, but we will defend, to the end, the right to make choices at all, because we believe that our collective conscience, freely expressed, will eventually lead us in the right direction. When it comes to guns, it is getting harder to muster that argument abroad. Every new shooting, every new failure of will and citizenship, slashes another hole in our credibility as a way of life. . Evan Osnos
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Dumbfounded, I stood before the court, trying to figure out if there was a state of being between “guilty” and “innocent.” Why were those my only alternatives? I thought. Why couldn’t I be “neither” or “both”? After a long pause, I finally faced the bench and said, “Your Honor, I plead human. Paul Beatty
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..I am the first to say that ours is a complex and difficult country and some of our complexities are indeed grotesque. We who are Negro Americans can offer that last remark with unwavering insistence. It is, on the other hand, also a great nation with certain beautiful and indestructible traditions and potentials which can be seized by all of who possess imagination and love of man. There is, as a certain play suggests, a great deal to be fought in America - but, at the same time, there is so much which begs to be but re-affirmed and cherished with sweet defiance. . Lorraine Hansberry
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...the freedom to bear arms may be righteously rejected to encourage the preservation of all corporeal forms of life. Kevin Alan Lee
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You may have heard the talk of diversity, sensitivity training, and body cameras. These are all fine and applicable, but they understate the task and allow the citizens of this country to pretend that there is real distance between their own attitudes and those of the ones appointed to protect them. The truth is that the police reflect America in all of its will and fear, and whatever we might make of this country’s criminal justice policy, it cannot be said that it was imposed by a repressive minority. The abuses that have followed from these policies–the sprawling carceral state, the random detention of black people, the torture of suspects–are the product of democratic will. And so to challenge the police is to challenge the American people who send them into the ghettos armed with the same self-generated fears that compelled the people who think they are white to flee the cities and into the Dream. The problem with the police is not that they are fascist pigs but that our country is ruled by majoritarian pigs. TaNehisi Coates
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Being on the frontier, as I've said, required doing rather than imagining: clearing land, building shelter, obtaining food supplies. Frontiers test ideologies like nothing else. There is no time for the theoretical. That, ultimately, is why America has not been friendly to communism, fascism, or other, more benign forms of utopianism. Idealized concepts have rarely taken firm root in America, and so intellectuals have had to look to Europe for inspiration. People here are too busy making money - an extension, of course, of the frontier ethos, with its emphasis on practical initiative. Robert D. Kaplan
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The United States has experienced more than two centuries of political stability. When viewed against the background of world history, this is remarkable. The First Amendment has played a singularly important role. When citizens can openly criticize their government, changes come about through orderly political processes. When grievances exist, they must be aired, if not through the channels of public debate, then by riots in the streets. The First Amendment functions as a safety valve through which the pressures and frustrations of a heterogeneous society can be ventilated and defused. Jacqueline R. Kanovitz
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Our democracy is threatened whenever we take it for granted. Barack Obama
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The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment. George Washington
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An institution rooted in slavery cannot be the voice of our people. DaShanne Stokes
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To be black in America is a wild and endless assault on the senses. You can spend every day fighting off your spiritual and intellectual extinction. Carvell Wallace
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We want to remember that America is at its best when it’s struggling to live up to its stated ideals. Lonnie Bunch
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[I am] someone who represents a very complex country which insists on being simple-minded. And simplicity, it occurs to me, it has occurred to me more than once, in my somewhat stormy life, simplicity is taken to be a great American virtue, along with sincerity. And the result of this is, if you are simple-minded enough, you can become– I didn’t want to go that far [laughs]. And as long as you’re sincere in what you say, you haven’t got to know what you’re talking about. These are the American virtues–two of them anyway. One of the results of this is that immaturity is taken to be a virtue too. James Baldwin
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But in view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guarantied by the supreme law of the land are involved. John Marshall Harlan
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If niggers were supposed to have their freedom, they wouldn't be in chains. If the red man was supposed to keep hold of his land, it'd still be his. If the white man wasn't destined to take this new world, he wouldn't own it now. Here was the true Great Spirit, the divine thread connecting all human endeavor--if you can keep it, it is yours. Your property, slave or continent. The American imperative. Colson Whitehead
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The other patrollers were boys and men of bad character; the work attracted a type. In another country they would have been criminals, but this was America. Colson Whitehead
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I’m dying twice as fastas any other Americanbetween eighteen and thirty-five This disturbs me, but I try not to show it in public. Essex Hemphill
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During these years in the small-talk wilderness, I also wondered why Americans valued friendliness with commerce so much. Was handing over cash the sacred rite of American capitalism–and of American life? On a day that I don’t spend money in America, I feel oddly depressed. It’s my main form of social interaction–as it is for millions of Americans who live alone or away from their families. Karan Mahajan
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In case nobody has told you, " she said, "this is the United States of America, where nobody has a right to rely on anybody else--where everybody learns to make his or her own way. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
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There is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime. That is not an exaggeration. John Baker
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They shouldnt teach their immigrants' kids all about democracy unless they mean to let them have a little bit of it, it ony makes for trouble. Me and the United States is dissociating our alliance as of right now, until the United States can find time to read its own textbooks a little. James Jones
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I like it too, " Angelo said. "I love this country. Much you and anybody, and you know it."" I know it, " Prew said." But I still hate this country. You love the Army. But I dont love the Army. This country's Army is why I hate this country. What did this country ever do for me? Gimme a right to vote for men I cant elect? You can have it. Gimme a right to work at a job I hate? You can have that too. Then tell I'm a Citizen of the greatest richest country on earth, if I dont believe it look at Park Avenue. Carnival prizes. All carnival prizes. [.] They shouldnt teach their immigrants' kids all about democracy unless they mean to let them have a little bit of it, it ony makes for trouble. Me and the United States is dissociating our alliance as of right now, until the United States can find time to read its own textbooks a li. James Jones
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The United States is democratic because its people live in conformity. It is the perfect country for mice. Warren Eyster
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What made such a plan seem workable was that for the early pluralists and their multicultural descendants society would have fewer and fewer traditional groups. The kind of pluralist society that Dewey and Kallen envisaged would go beyond rooted ethnic communities. It would become the evolving creation of “free” individual participants, setting goals under scientific direction and having their material interests monitored by a “conductor state.” The world as conceived by pluralists was there to be managed and to be made culturally safe for its framers: Eastern and Central European Jews fearful of traditional Gentile mores and the uprooted descendants of New England Calvinists looking for the New Jerusalem under scientific management. Paul Edward Gottfried
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The problem with the politicians of both parties in the US is that neither of them have a real agenda except to feather their own nests. They both have their hands deep in corporate pockets. All the rest is sleight of hand and distraction to keep the public occupied with trivia, divided against each other, and thinking their vote matters. Michael Hogan
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Much of what is euphemistically known as the middle class, merely because it dresses up to go to work, is now reduced to proletarian conditions of existence. Many white-collar jobs require no more skill and pay even less than blue-collar jobs, conferring little status or security. Christopher Lasch
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A cause that only serves me is much like a door on the edge of a cliff, it doesn’t open to anywhere good. Craig D. Lounsbrough
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The country was a dreamland; and perhaps it even reminded my wife's grandfather of the night he woke up drunk in his friend's house, beside his friend's wife, everything similar but new, different, better. The United States of America was like an eternity of those first disorientating seconds of not knowing and not wanting to. Tod Wodicka
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Life is about love and as a country that stands united, we lose in the battle that we call love. Jonathan Anthony Burkett
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...the more I see the better satisfied I am that I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit. Theodore Roosevelt
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It’s been four years since Justin kissed his best friend Lucas when they were both just 12. Then Justin, afraid of what it meant, afraid of how he felt, afraid of what it made him, ran and has been running from and avoiding Lucas for these four years. The thing about running is that no matter how fast you run, the past always catches up with you, and when faced with his past and all the things he’s missed, Justin finds he doesn’t want to run anymore. Now Justin wants to try to make things right with Lucas; he wants his best friend back. But maybe it's too late. Maybe Lucas has moved on. Read the story to find out if Justin is successful. This story isn't only about internalized homophobia and the hurtful things it leads gay kids to do to themselves and others. It is much more about truth, love and hurt and coming to terms with those things, forgiving yourself, and loving yourself enough to hold yourself accountable. JUVENALIUS
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It’s tough enough to be a straight boy in a small town high school looking for the love of your life. But at least your possible loves are all out in the open. JUVENALIUS
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Juvenalius, 15 and gay, has been raised in a difficult family and has been held in his aunt's Diana suffocating iron grip for all of his life. He has been made to feel worthless and ashamed; with no freedom, only obedience. Yet this begins to change one day when he meets a boy named Davis at his high school who has drawn the meaningful letter 'C' on his right hand. Now Juvenalius has hope but his behavioral changes are seen as an act of defiance in his aunt's eyes until she catches Juvenalius and Davis kissing out back under the school's library windows. Then Juve's life is unexpectedly transformed. JUVENALIUS
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I was on my way to talk to Davis when the car hit me". . "A dark figure emerged from the shadows, half-lit by the glittering streetlight and the pale glow of the moon". . . "Huge black wings erupted out of her back like a blooming rose. She was beautiful." . "I knew who this woman was.’ Are you Death?'" . . “'Most people have something holding them down to this world, ' she said, 'like a tether on a balloon. It could be something material, a person, or persons, an unfinished goal. There are many reasons to want to keep living. I wonder, Juvenalius, what is yours?' I smiled just thinking about it. 'His name’s Davis.'Her hand stroked my cheek so gently I wanted to cry. 'Tell me about him, ' she whispered." And Juvenalius does. And you will be transfixed as Juve's first friend comes to life in his memory in this Tale with a gay twist. JUVENALIUS
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Juvenalius has problems.. though like most kids on the threshold of sexual awareness he only knows life sucks.. he isn't clear about why. His mother rants on and on about the iniquity of his school having a gay straight alliance. She's quite safe about that, as Ryan is too shy to join, or is that scared? His only friend is a dog so the question of boy or girl-friend hardly arises.. until he gets a valentine.. from the least likely boy in the school. . JUVENALIUS
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Church is so confusing for Juvenalius. His new pastor preaches nothing but hate and condemnation of gays and lesbians, but no matter how carefully he reads his Bible, he can’t find where it says God hates him. Will things change when Juve's boyfriend Devis suggests that they all go to his church instead? JUVENALIUS
89
What's it like for a young teen of barely 14, trying to cope with all the normal problems of adolescence, and wrestling with the realization that he's gay on top of all that? Juvenalius struggles with accepting himself and with the idea of coming out, as well as trying to find a boy who he can love and be loved back in return. Narrated by him, find out how he deals with it all and how those important to his life help. JUVENALIUS
90
It’s much, much tougher when you’re a 17 year-old gay boy, part of only 10% or less of the school population and your possible loves are all in hiding, just as you are, due to the fear of being socially ostracized, laughed at, condemned and physically harassed by your peers. JUVENALIUS
91
Maybe some people enter in your life to create wonderful memories before they leave. Its hard to come to terms with that whether they walk away alive or dead. The only thing we can do is keeping that person in your memory as long as you can. That person does not need to please you like a girlfriend or a boy-friend but they can make you happy. That person does not need to cherish you like parents, but they can give you warmth & they are always ready to protect you. That person does not need to make us laugh at all times like friends, but they can make you smile. That some one who you won't go into hysterics when they leave, but they will always be in your memory forever. JUVENALIUS
92
Maybe some people enter in your life to create wonderful memories before they leave. Its hard to come to terms with that whether they walk away alive or dead. The only thing we can do is keeping that person in your memory as long as you can. That person does not need to please you like a girlfriend or a boy-friend but they can make you happy. That person does not need to cherish you like parents, but they can give you warmth & they are always ready to protect you. That person does not need to make us laugh at all times like friends, but they can make you smile. That some one who you won't go into hysterics when they leave, but they will always be in your memory forever. . JUVENALIUS
93
Maybe some people enter in your life to create wonderful memories before they leave. Its hard to come to terms with that whether they walk away alive or dead. The only thing we can do is keeping that person in your memory as long as you can. That person does not need to please you like a girlfriend or a boy-friend but they can make you happy. That person does not need to cherish you like parents, but they can give you warmth & they are always ready to protect you. That person does not need to make us laugh at all times like friends, but they can make you smile. That some one who you won't go into hysterics when they leave, but they will always be in your memory forever. JUVENALIUS . JUVENALIUS
94
We Boys and Men need to know how to Love. Though It may sometimes hurt, we need to persevere and party it out. JUVENALIUS
95
The greatest people and most successful ones are the ones who never went to school . Sure. JUVENALIUS
96
Trump is a counter-product of the traditional political scheme. Nilantha Ilangamuwa
97
It was the United States of America in the cold late spring of 1967, and the market was steady and the G.N.P. high and a great many articulate people seemed to have a sense of high social purpose and it might have been a spring of brave hopes and national promise, but it was not, and more and more people had the uneasy apprehension that it was not. Joan Didion
98
Ask him about the cemeteries, Dean! "In 1966 upon being told that President Charles DeGaulle had taken France out of NATO and that all U.S. troops must be evacuated off of French soil President Lyndon Johnson mentioned to Secretary of State Dean Rusk that he should ask DeGaulle about the Americans buried in France. Dean implied in his answer that that DeGaulle should not really be asked that in the meeting at which point President Johnson then told Secretary of State Dean Rusk:"Ask him about the cemeteries Dean! "That made it into a Presidential Order so he had to ask President DeGaulle.So at end of the meeting Dean did ask DeGaulle if his order to remove all U.S. troops from French soil also included the 60, 000+ soldiers buried in France from World War I and World War II.DeGaulle, embarrassed, got up and left and never answered. . Lyndon B. Johnson
99
The long-term effect of Hillary’s loss could be more beneficial to the future of America than one might think. For if Obama’s reign placed hope in the hearts of the young and instilled in them a belief that differences must be embraced then Hillary’s crushing defeat has awakened them to the harsh realities of a hopeful indifference and raised their voices in opposition of all those ideals that would not only darken their future but the future of the entire world. Aysha Taryam
100
What does ‘United States of America’ mean? That we’re some states, we’re united somehow, and that we’re in America. America could be anywhere on the continents of North or South America, so that’s not specific enough, and the part about the states doesn’t narrow it down, either. Mexico has united states, too. So does Canada, except they call them provinces. It’s not even a name. It’s just a vague description. It’s so generic, like naming a country ‘Country. . Erin ORiordan