Quotes About Americans

When you talk about the security and safety of average Americans it doesn't do average Americans a lot of good to expand America's military footprint if the daily lives of average Americans are being undermined by the fact that we're no longer able to compete in a global economy. I think that's the kind of human security we have to pay more attention to.

Listing the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act could harm bear conservation efforts by eliminating revenues from the carefully-regulated sport hunting of polar bears by Americans and the importation of polar bear meat and trophies into the U.S. As hunting by non-Americans would replace hunting by Americans, nothing would be accomplished in terms of reducing the number of polar bears killed, but the revenue currently generated by American sport hunters for conservation and research efforts would be eliminated.

Americans really don't know much about chess. But I think when I beat Spassky, that Americans will take a greater interest in chess. Americans like winners.

When we got organized as a country, [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution, with a radical Bill of Rights, giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly...When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it.

The laws of our land are catching up to the fundamental truth that millions of Americans hold in our hearts: when all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free.

Whereas Europeans generally pronounce my name the right way ('Ni-klows Wirt'), Americans invariably mangle it into 'Nick-les Worth'. This is to say that Europeans call me by name, but Americans call me by value.

Politicians like to talk about the income tax when they talk about overtaxing the rich, but the income tax is just one part of the total tax system. There are sales taxes, Medicare taxes, social security taxes, unemployment taxes, gasoline taxes, excise taxes - and when you add up all of those taxes [many of which are quite regressive], and then you look at how they affect the rich and the poor, you essentially end up with a system in which the best off 20 percent of Americans pay one percentage point more of their income than the worst off 20 percent of Americans.

The illusion of design is so successful that to this day most Americans (including, significantly, many influential and rich Americans) stubbornly refuse to believe it is an illusion.

Most Americans are born drunk, and really require a little wine or beer to sober them. They have a sort of permanent intoxication from within, a sort of invisible champagne. Americans do not need to drink to inspire them to do anything, though they do sometimes, I think, need a little for the deeper and more delicate purpose of teaching them how to do nothing.

There's no doubt that when it comes to our treatment of Native Americans as well as other persons of color in this country, we've got some very sad and difficult things to account for. I personally would want to see our tragic history, or the tragic elements of our history, acknowledged. I consistently believe that when it comes to whether it's Native Americans or African-American issues or reparations, the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds.

Over the course of more than 200 years, it has found a right to equal education regardless of race. It has guaranteed an attorney and a fair trial to all Americans, rich and poor alike. It has allowed women to keep private medical decisions private. And it has allowed Americans to speak, vote and worship without interference from their government.

There is some of the paradox of foreign policy polling. So on Iraq and Syria, the President is pretty much doing what Americans want, he's not very engaged, but they don't like the results, his polling numbers are going down. Americans may be ambivalent and disengaged with the world, they don't want a President who is ambivalent and disengaged with the world.

Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets, because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes. Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots and announce - yes, announce - that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by... liberals.

Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight.

Look at the chaos of European history. Europeans cannot believe in certainty. But Americans believe in certainty. Americans think this can go on like this forever. Just as it is. No change.

I want all Hispanics in the Republican Party, in the Democratic Party, whether Latin Americans, Central Americans, Cubans, Mexicans, I want us to unite.

Just because they broke the law doesn't mean they're condemned forever to a twilight status. So, I think that most Americans, if these people who have come illegally, as long as they pay back taxes, pay a fine, learn English and get behind everybody else, that's a key element of it. And most Americans now realize we can't have 11 million people sit in the twilight - the shadows of America, forever.

Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.

However, the Administration's plan to privatize Social Security will undermine retirement security for all Americans by cutting guaranteed benefits by more than 40 percent, and risky private accounts won't make up for the loss of benefits for millions of Americans.

A range of studies shows there is no evidence immigrants commit more crime than native-born Americans. In fact, first generation immigrants are predisposed to lower crime rates than native-born Americans. The two cities in this country most impacted by undocumented immigrants, you would think of the New York City with over 500,000 and Los Angeles, with a similar amount. Both those cities are among the safest in the free world.

We are Americans, speaking the same language, adopting the same customs, holding the same general opinions... and shall rise and fall with Americans.

One of the main things about Cockney is, you speak at twice the speed as Americans. Americans speak very slow.

For educated Americans like Joseph Ellis, Vietnam is a special hang-up. I am an Englishman of exactly the Vietnam generation, a couple of years younger than Ellis; indeed, for reasons too complicated to explain here, I was nearly drafted into the US army in 1965. I know many Americans of my own age and, as much to the point, my own class - journalists, publishers, lawyers. And I don't think I know one who served in Vietnam.

We Americans only voted for George Bush to prove to the British that Americans understand irony. Unfortunately, it kinda backfired.

I have been guilty of watching Westerns without acknowledging that Native Americans have gone through the same madness as African Americans. Isn't it extraordinary that sometimes the most offended have not seen others being offended?

I think that may be the biggest difference between Americans and people elsewhere. Unlike Americans, Canadians know that there are places just as real as Canada. It's a self-centeredness that's a very strange thing.

As for himself, however hateful life was, it was hateful in a home and not in the gutter. Many Americans hated their homes. The number of homeless in America couldn't touch the number of Americans who had homes and families and hated the whole thing.

The people and the warmakers are two distinct groups. We must never say 'we' when discussing the US government's foreign policy. For one thing, the warmakers do not care about the opinions of the majority of Americans. It is silly and embarrassing for Americans to speak of 'we' when discussing their government's foreign policy, as if their input were necessary to or desired by those who make war.

Southern food derives its strength from many cultures. It's a melding of food cultures from Native Americans, enslaved African-Americans, and Europeans.

The trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans. I say, the trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans.

The task that has fallen to us as Americans is to move the conscience of the world, to keep alive the hope and dream of freedom. For if we fail or falter, there'll be no place for the world's oppressed to flee to. This is not a role we sought. We preach no manifest destiny. But like the Americans who brought a new nation into the world 200 years ago, history has asked much of us in our time. Much we've already given; much more we must be prepared to give.

it is only on posters and in advertisement pages that Americans have those chubby cheeks, expanding smiles, smooth looks, and faces flushed with well-being. In fact, almost all are at odds with themselves; drink offers a remedy for this inner malady of which boredom is the most usual sign: as drinking is accepted by society, it does not appear as a sign of their [Americans'] inability to adapt themselves; it is rather the adapted form of inadaptability.

Whenever people in that part of the world asked Patterson about the wonders of America, the possibilities and the hope of America, Patterson would say that it was a good and fine place but all the Americans were running it into the ground and that it would be a far better place if it had no Americans.

My personal missteps - how many Americans have died as a result of that? None. Other than my family, how many victims were there? None. And yet, in refusing to engage in a responsible debate about Iraq, how many Americans died? Thousands. And America seems to have no problem with that.

Americans know very little about social statistics, but I am not sure that it's important that Americans know about social statistics.

I have a very great respect for Americans, and having been a correspondent in this country, and I believe that Americans are people who respond much better to facts and truthful, genuine speculation, than they do to purely, kind of phoney, adulation.

Donald Trump, like most Americans, like most Republicans, believe in protecting America's core national interests. He believes as do I, as do most Americans, that we aren't yet doing enough to take the fight to the Islamic State.That the intervention in Libya was ill-considered and slapdash at the time. And we're living with the consequences of it now. That we have to get tougher when it comes to our intelligence and law enforcement practices to stop Islamic terrorism.

New immigration plan is about legal education. It allows educated people who want to become Americans to stay and become Americans. It was nothing but common sense. It went over the heads of the media because their prejudicial bias did not permit them to even understand this was about legal immigration.

If we are to garner sustained U.S. domestic support for future trade agreements, we have to make sure those Americans who have suffered as a consequence of past agreements have an effective social safety net, adjustment assistance, opportunities for retraining and new job creation that enables all Americans to thrive.

You can't underestimate the sickness of the American people right now. They're really sick. And, that's, I'm more angry at the sick Americans than I am at Obama or Hillary Clinton. I'm really angry at the sick Americans.

I'm convinced that today the majority of Americans want what those first Americans wanted: A better life for themselves and their children; a minimum of government authority.

Obama wants to stand for a peaceful, generous, encompassing approach that would bring all Americans, but not just Americans, the whole of international society, together to advance civilization towards what we all understand is necessary to advance. Because of that he's being subjected to very serious rejections from the reactionary portion of the system, which, unfortunately, is the dominant portion.

As you know, there were lots of huge marches around the country yesterday to protest the immigration laws. The marches had quite an impact on businesses. Restaurants had to close, construction sites had to shut down, the Yankees had to forfeit a game. ... Do you realize that Americans are now doing the jobs that immigrants won't do because they're out protesting?

We're all Americans trying to compete. Magic was competing for his team and Larry for his team.

When Americans think of college these days, the first word that often comes to mind is 'debt.' And from 'debt' it's just a short hop to other unpleasant words, like 'payola,' 'kickback,' and 'bribery.'

One of the ongoing crises in America is institutional racism. We have a very broken criminal justice system. We live in a country where there are more people in jail than any other country on Earth. There are some 2.2 million people currently incarcerated and they are disproportionally African American and Hispanic. Unarmed African Americans have been abused and sometimes killed while in police custody. Clearly these are issues that must be dealt with and changed.

I'm not responding to any of the personal attacks that come from Donald Trump, because he can say whatever he wants about me, and I have more votes than he does as we sit here today. More Americans have voted for me.

Everything that came out of Europe, every blue-eyed thing, is already an American. And as long as you and I have been over here, we aren't Americans yet.