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United States

country primarily located in North America
(Redirected from US)

"America", "US", "USA", and "United States of America" redirect here. For the landmass comprising North, Central, South America, and the Caribbean, see Americas. For other uses, see America (disambiguation).

E Pluribus Unum

The United States of America (U.S.), commonly referred to as the United States or America, is a transcontinental country located primarily on the continent of North America, with territories located on islands in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the country. New York is the most populous city in the country, whereas California is the most populous constituent state. The country's capital is Washington, D.C., which is located within the District of Columbia between the states of Maryland and Virginia. The United States is one of the founders of the United Nations organization, of which it is a permanent member. The United States is the third largest country in the world by both population and land area.

Quotes

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18th century

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  • Neither my father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, great grandfather or great grandmother, nor any other relation that I know of, or care a farthing for, has been in England these one hundred and fifty years; so that you see I have not one drop of blood in my veins but what is American.
    • John Adams, to a foreign ambassador (1785), as quoted in Charles F. Adams (ed.), The Works of John Adams (1851), p. 392

19th century

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We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth
  • Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
  • Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
    All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,
    Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
    Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
    A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
    Chair’d in the adamant of Time.
    • "America" in the New York Herald (11 February 1888)

20th century

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  • I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. 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. ... No, I’m not an American. I’m one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy.
  • If this is a country of freedom, let it be a country of freedom; and if it's not a country of freedom, change it.
    • Malcolm X, "The Ballot or the Bullet", Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)
  • There are two Americas. One is the America of Lincoln and Adlai Stevenson; the other is the America of Teddy Roosevelt and the modern superpatriots. One is generous and humane, the other narrowly egotistical; one is self-critical, the other self-righteous; one is sensible, the other romantic; one is good-humored, the other solemn; one is inquiring, the other pontificating; one is moderate, the other filled with passionate intensity; one is judicious and the other arrogant in the use of great power.

21st century

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  • If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922), pp. 21–23.
  • E pluribus unum.
    • From many, one.
    • Motto of the United States of America. First appeared on title page of Gentleman's Miscellany, Jan., 1692. Pierre Antoine (Peter Anthony Motteaux) was editor. Dr. Simetiere affixed it to the American National Seal at time of the Revolution. See Howard P. Arnold Historical Side Lights. Compare: "Ex pluribus unum facere"; translation: From many to make one; St. Augustine, Confessions, Book IV. 8. 13.
  • Yet, still, from either beach,
    The voice of blood shall reach,
    More audible than speech,
    "We are one!"
  • Asylum of the oppressed of every nation.
    • Phrase used in the Democratic platform of 1856, referring to the U.S.
  • O, Columbia, the gem of the ocean,
    The home of the brave and the free,
    The shrine of each patriot's devotion,
    A world offers homage to thee.
    • An adaptation of Shaw's Britannia.
  • America! half brother of the world!
    With something good and bad of every land.
  • A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.
    • Edmund Burke, speech on Conciliation with America, Works, Volume II.
  • Young man, there is America—which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world.
    • Edmund Burke, speech on Conciliation with America, Works, Volume II.
  • I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old.
  • The North! the South! the West! the East!
    No one the most and none the least,
    But each with its own heart and mind,
    Each of its own distinctive kind,
    Yet each a part and none the whole,
    But all together form one soul;
    That soul Our Country at its best,
    No North, no South, no East, no West,
    No yours, no mine, but always Ours,
    Merged in one Power our lesser powers,
    For no one's favor, great or small,
    But all for Each and each for All.
  • Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,
    The queen of the world and the child of the skies!
    Thy genius commands thee; with rapture behold,
    While ages on ages thy splendors unfold.
  • Bring me men to match my mountains,
    Bring me men to match my plains,
    Men with empires in their purpose,
    And new eras in their brains.
  • The breaking waves dashed high
    On a stern and rock-bound coast;
    And the woods, against a stormy sky,
    Their giant branches tost.
  • Hail, Columbia! happy land!
    Hail, ye heroes! heavenborn band!
    Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause.
  • America is a tune. It must be sung together.
  • Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
    Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
    Humanity with all its fears,
    With all the hopes of future years,
    Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
  • Down to the Plymouth Rock, that had been to their feet as a doorstep
    Into a world unknown,—the corner-stone of a nation!
  • Earth's biggest Country's gut her soul
    An' risen up Earth's Greatest Nation.
  • When asked what State he hails from,
    Our sole reply shall be,
    He comes from Appomattox And its famous apple tree.
  • Neither do I acknowledge the right of Plymouth to the whole rock. No, the rock underlies all America: it only crops out here.
    • Wendell Phillips, speech at the dinner of the Pilgrim Society at Plymouth (Dec. 21, 1855).
  • Give it only the fulcrum of Plymouth Rock, an idea will upheave the continent.
  • We have room but for one Language here and that is the English Language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans of American nationality and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house.
  • My country, 'tis of thee,
    Sweet land of liberty,—
    Of thee I sing:
    Land where my fathers died,
    Land of the Pilgrim's pride,
    From every mountain side
    Let freedom ring.
  • In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue?
    • Sydney Smith, Works, Volume II. America (Edinburgh Review, 1820).
  • Gigantic daughter of the West
    We drink to thee across the flood….
    For art not thou of English blood?
    • Alfred Tennyson, Hands all Round (in the Oxford Tennyson; Appeared in the Examiner, 1862; The London Times, 1880).
  • So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
    My heart is turning home again, and I long to be
    In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars,
    Where the air is full of sunshine, and the flag is full of stars.
  • The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years.
  • Some Americans need hyphens in their names, because only part of them has come over; but when the whole man has come over, heart and thought and all, the hyphen drops of its own weight out of his name.
    • Woodrow Wilson, address, Unveiling of the Statue to the Memory of Commodore John Barry, Washington (May 16, 1914).
  • Just what is it that America stands for? If she stands for one thing more than another, it is for the sovereignty of self-governing people, and her example, her assistance, her encouragement, has thrilled two continents in this western world with all those fine impulses which have built up human liberty on both sides of the water. She stands, therefore, as an example of independence, as an example of free institutions, and as an example of disinterested international action in the main tenets of justice.
  • We want the spirit of America to be efficient; we want American character to be efficient; we want American character to display itself in what I may, perhaps, be allowed to call spiritual efficiency—clear, disinterested thinking and fearless action along the right lines of thought. America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists of all of us; and it can consist of all of us only as our spirits are banded together in a common enterprise. That common enterprise is the enterprise of liberty and justice and right. And, therefore, I, for my part, have a great enthusiasm for rendering America spiritually efficient; and that conception lies at the basis of what seems very far removed from it, namely, the plans that have been proposed for the military efficiency of this nation.
  • Home from the lonely cities, time's wreck, and the naked woe,
    Home through the clean great waters where freemen's pennants blow,
    Home to the land men dream of, where all the nations go.
  • We must consult Brother Jonathan.
    • George Washington's familiar reference to his secretary and Aide-de-camp, Col. Jonathan Trumbull; the phrase, Brother Jonathan, later came to mean the American people, collectively.

See also

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