Quotes about Americans

"The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way."
-Henry David Thoreau

"Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves."
-Albert Einstein

"An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before. An American is a person who does things because they haven't been done before."
-Mark Twain

"Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them."
-George Bernard Shaw

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
-Thomas Jefferson

"The American, by nature, is optimistic. He is experimental, an inventor and a builder who builds best when called upon to build greatly."
-John F. Kennedy

"I sometimes think that the saving grace of America lies in the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities- a sense of humor and a sense of proportion."
-Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American."
-Malcolm X

"Americans never quit."
-General Douglas MacArthur

"Americans are overreachers; overreaching is the most admirable of the many American excesses."
-George F. Will

"The people of the United States, perhaps more than any other nation in history, love to abase themselves and proclaim their unworthiness, and seem to find refreshment in doing so... That is a dark frivolity, but still frivolity."
-Robertson Davies

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
-H. L. Mencken

"George Washington had a vision for this country. Was it three days of uninterrupted shopping?"
-Jeff Melvoin

"In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning."
-A. E. Housman

"How much longer are we going to think it necessary to be ''American'' before (or in contradistinction to) being cultivated, being enlightened, being humane, and having the same intellectual discipline as other civilized countries?"
-Edith Wharton

"Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States."
-J. Bartlett Brebner

"Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then-we elected them."
-Lily Tomlin

"It is, I think, an indisputable fact that Americans are, as Americans, the most self- conscious people in the world, and the most addicted to the belief that the other nations are in a conspiracy to under-value them."
-Henry James

"And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."
-John F. Kennedy

"As Americans, we go forward, in the service of our country, by the will of God."
-Franklin D. Roosevelt

"We are Americans when we go to war, and when we return, we are Mexicans."
-Dennis Chavez

"Americans are extraordinarily charitable."
-John Graham

"For the first time we as Americans were acutely aware of what you do."
-Jim Steiner

"We protect the rights of Americans and their privacy, ... We do not violate them and we never will."
-George Tenet

"They show how important it was to us as Americans that everyone had a home."
-Jeanne Lambin

"That kind of system, individual to individual, is a great way to go. There are a lot of great Americans out there."
-David Passey

"It was fun. I think for us this is really about the experience, and we're here to root on the other Americans."
-Jamie Silverstein

"What can I say? Americans love fried chicken."
-Harry Balzer