American Exceptionalism Quotes

Apologizing for our past sins may reveal character and for a time lessen anti-Americanism abroad, but if it is done without acknowledging that the sins of America are the sins of mankind, and that our remedies are so often exceptional, then it only earns transitory applause - and a more lasting contempt that we ourselves do not believe in the values we profess. ~ Victor Davis Hanson

The position of the Americans is quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

I found Toronto an immensely likeable city, spacious and gentle and slightly dignified, but in a low-key, friendly way. The only people who didn't seem to think much of it were its inhabitants, who could hardly wait for you to ask directions, because that gave them the perfect opportunity to apologise for it. What they were apologising for I never understood. I think they felt uninteresting, compared with America. I took the opposite view; I remember reading about the doctrine of American "Exceptionalism" and thinking that what I liked so much about Canadians was that they consider themselves unexceptional. This modest, unthreatening attitude seems to produce a nation that is stable, safe, decent and well respected. It's just a shame that for seven months of the year it's so cold that only Canadians would put up with it. ~ John Cleese

A lot of liberals don't believe in American exceptionalism, but it doesn't mean they don't love America. ~ Megyn Kelly

Most televangelists, popular Christian preacher icons, and heads of those corporations that we call megachurches share an unreflective modern view of Jesus--that he translates easily and almost automatically into a modern idiom. The fact is, however, that Jesus was not a person of the twenty-first century who spoke the language of contemporary Christian America (or England or Germany or anywhere else). Jesus was inescapably and ineluctably a Jew living in first-century Palestine. He was not like us, and if we make him like us we transform the historical Jesus into a creature that we have invented for ourselves and for our own purposes.

Jesus would not recognize himself in the preaching of most of his followers today. He knew nothing of our world. He was not a capitalist. He did not believe in free enterprise. He did not support the acquisition of wealth or the good things in life. He did not believe in massive education. He had never heard of democracy. He had nothing to do with going to church on Sunday. He knew nothing of social security, food stamps, welfare, American exceptionalism, unemployment numbers, or immigration. He had no views on tax reform, health care (apart from wanting to heal leprosy), or the welfare state. So far as we know, he expressed no opinion on the ethical issues that plague us today: abortion and reproductive rights, gay marriage, euthanasia, or bombing Iraq. His world was not ours, his concerns were not ours, and--most striking of all-- ~ Bart D. Ehrman

The Open Road goes to the used-car lot. ~ Louis Simpson

I dont know what happens to country. ~ Cormac McCarthy

I think the American people would be compassionate and practical. But we need to be talking about assimilation as well, something that is politically incorrect, I know, to say that people should learn English, should learn American exceptionalism, shouldn't come here to use our freedoms to undermine the freedoms we give to everybody. But there's nothing wrong with saying people who want to come here should want to be Americans. ~ Bobby Jindal

Post World War II America draws a great deal of interest, but the students also seem to know quite a bit about American exceptionalism and its historical roots. ~ Mohammad Marandi

Both Obama and Romney ended up in the wrong place: the former thought American exceptionalism was no longer true and should be given up while the latter thought it was still true. Neither was willing to tell Americans that they were no longer exceptional but should try to be again. ~ George Packer

So much American science fiction is parochial
not as true now as it was years ago, but the assumption is one culture in the future, more or less like ours, and with the same ideals, the same notions of how to do things, just bigger and flashier technology. Well, you know darn well it doesn't work that way ... ~ Poul Anderson

When the culture of the East, its chief characteristic, is added to the strength of body and the strength of mind of the agricultural center, its special contribution, and these two great characteristics are constantly imbued with the spirit of independence and love of liberty which lives in the hearts of the dwellers of the mountains, their main quality added to the national character, there is every reason to believe that we shall have a people and institutions such as will be permanent; with such wealth of resources, of such high education and intelligence, and of such vitality, of such longevity, of such devotion to freedom and hostility to centralization and tyranny as shall enable this Nation of ours to stand indefinitely; and to maintain in the future years its manifest destiny of leading the peoples and nations of earth in the principles of free government, constitutional security and individual liberty. Under these and under these alone, the faculties, the aspirations and inspirations of mankind may be unfolded into their full flowering to the fruition of an ever greater and more humane civilization. ~ Charles Edwin Winter

Our country's cheerleaders are wedded to the notion of American exceptionalism. But when it comes to the machinations of power, we are all too similar to other societies and ones that have come before us. There is an implacable brutality to power that is familiar throughout the world and throughout history. ~ David Talbot

Even though Pope Urban VIII reversed the pronouncements of his predecessors by declaring slavery unacceptable in the mid-seventeenth century, the vast majority of Protestant Christians in America considered slavery and white supremacy to be absolutely consistent with "biblical" Christianity. It would take American Protestants over a hundred years to make slavery history. Even then, they would find ways to cleverly camouflage the old Doctrine of Discovery and its white supremacist scaffolding under distinctly American terms like Manifest Destiny and American exceptionalism, terms still celebrated in many sectors of US society today. Professor ~ Brian D. McLaren

The idea of American exceptionalism doesn't extend to Americans being exceptional. ~ Maureen Dowd

We can only solve our biggest problems if we come together and embrace the freedoms that our Founding Fathers established right here in Philadelphia, which permitted our ancestors to create the great American exceptionalism that all of us now enjoy. ~ Michael Bloomberg

Here beyond men's judgments all covenants were brittle. ~ Cormac McCarthy

It is not that I am not a fan of American exceptionalism. That is like saying I am not a fan of the moon being made out of green cheese-it does not exist. Powerful states have quite typically considered themselves to be exceptionally magnificent, and the United States is no exception to that. The basis for it is not very substantial to put it politely. ~ Noam Chomsky

The first great skeptic of American exceptionalism, he refused to believe that the country was exempt from the sober lessons of history. ~ Ron Chernow

If people are being upstanding citizens of the Republic, then you have to widen the net to incarcerate them. This explains why America's prisons are full of nonviolent offenders - a perfect example of American exceptionalism. ~ Henry Rollins

Even Republicans seem to think that these undocumented Democrats could be made [GOP] voters ... and what happens is that two out every three that would be legalized [and] become Democrats. And it's not 12 million. It's more like 20 million ... But it isn't just the equation of 2/3 of over 20 million that will vote for the guy who opposes our conservative candidate whoever that might be, but it's also those who will leave us if we fail them ... We have to go back and tie together and restore the pillars of American exceptionalism and the rule of law is essential. ~ Steve King

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. ~ Barack Obama

I didn't have a manifesto. I had some discontent. It seemed to me that midcentury mainstream American science fiction had often been triumphalist and militaristic, a sort of folk propaganda for American exceptionalism. ~ William Gibson

America is a post-Christian nation only in the sense that we have built a tenement on the foundation of a palace. ~ Ron Brackin

To have a museum chronicling the great crime that was African slavery in the United States of America would be to acknowledge that the evil was here. Americans prefer to picture the evil that was there, and from which the United States-a unique nation, one without any certifiably wicked leaders throughout its entire history-is exempt. That this country, like every other country, has its tragic past does not sit well with the founding, and still all-powerful belief in American exceptionalism. ~ Susan Sontag

Freed slaves returned to Africa settled in a section of what was known as the "Pepper Coast" and on July 26, 1847, issued a Declaration of Independence and established a constitution based on the political principles denoted in the United States Constitution. In doing so they established the independent Republic of Liberia. Law and Order was something the ruling class of Liberians prided themselves on. The Americo Liberians, as they called themselves, were uber-Conservatives and had a glorified picture of what the American government was like. As Conservatives they saw themselves living a privileged lifestyle, sustained by their faith in God and the blessings that had been bestowed upon them by this deity. Amongst themselves there was much talk about the subjects of freedom, liberty, democracy and independence. They felt that these idealisms were deserved because of their exceptionalism. Taking a page from the concept of American exceptionalism, they fantasied of their very own Liberian exceptionalism, completely forgetting the indigenous natives living among them. Whereas the Americo Liberians lived an affluent lifestyle reflecting the antebellum era in the Southern tier of the United States, the local blacks, for the greatest part lived in squalor. In 1980, a violent military coup shattered the way of life in Liberia. Led by army Master Sergeant Samuel Doe, the country's ruling group of Americo-Liberians were brutally overthrown and frequently executed. Doe's term as Presid ~ Hank Bracker

American politicians who dwell on American exceptionalism only dishonor us by suggesting we play dumb to our past. ~ Jay Parini

American exceptionalism, in the broad sense, is not a bunch of braggadocious words people say, "Yeah, we're better people. We have a better country. We are higher class people." That's not what it is. America was the exception to the way human beings prior to America, most of which lived. ~ Rush Limbaugh

It's a deft trick to turn American exceptionalism into an exceptional political tactic. ~ Ron Fournier

I want to find the candidates who understand the principles of American exceptionalism and have the character, the courage, and the confidence to actually lead the greatest nation in the world. ~ Jim DeMint

We don't have to apologize for American exceptionalism or western values. ~ Rick Perry

Business must be a force for good in the world. ~ David Cooperrider

Everything that everyone is afraid of has already happened: The fragility of capitalism, which we don't want to admit; the loss of the empire of the United States; and American exceptionalism. In fact, American exceptionalism is that we are exceptionally backward in about fifteen different categories, from education to infrastructure. ~ James Hillman

Mitt Romney says he believes in America and that he will restore American exceptionalism. I have news for him, we already have an exceptional American as president and we believe in Barack Obama. ~ John F. Kerry

Moreover, the very belief that Americans had somehow discovered the ultimate answer to mankind's eternal quandaries and were now poised to establish heaven on earth was a delusion that deserved to be ranked alongside the fables about the Holy Grail and the fountain of youth. "We may boast that we are one, the chosen people,: he (Adams) warned, " and we may even thank God that we are not like other men, but, after all, it would be but flattery, delusion, the self-deceit of the Pharisee. ~ Joseph J. Ellis

The conservative version of American exceptionalism has become a password of sorts for candidates who want to prove their credentials to a right-wing America. ~ Russ Feingold

One thing is clear: One cannot understand the Nazi vocabulary adequately if one only looks at Germany. What is the "blood disgrace" of which 'Mein Kampf' warns – as we have seen – if not the "miscegenation" that is condemned also by the proponents of 'White Supremacy'? Even the key term of Nazi-ideology 'subhuman [Untermensch]' is a translation of the American 'Under Man'! ~ Domenico Losurdo

In nothing is there more evolution than the American mind. ~ Walt Whitman

Wanted has gone into second, third and fourth printings of the individual issues and the north American printings of Wanted #1 are now close to 100,000. ~ Mark Millar

I definitely believe that the so-called American decline is greatly exaggerated. ~ Al-Waleed Bin Talal

In a best-selling book, 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs (reprinted nine times by 1935), a pair of consumer-advocate authors complained that American citizens had become test animals for chemical industries that were indifferent to their customers' well-being. The government, they added bitterly, was complicit. ~ Deborah Blum

If I could do this book properly it would be one of the really fine books and a truly American book. But I am assailed with my own ignorance and inability. i'll just have to work from a background of these. Honesty. If I can keep an honesty it is all I can expect of my poor brain ... If I can do that it will be all my lack of genius can produce. For no else knows my lack of ability the way I do. I am pushing against it all the time. ~ John Steinbeck

When I first started writing, I was living in England and I had that uniquely English sense of sarcasm, which has definitely seemed to have left me. I am a naturalized American and my sensibility has become far more American. ~ Jane Green

From Clara Barton's tireless work founding the American Red Cross to the first female Medal of Honor winner, Dr. Mary Walker, to our first female combat fighter pilot Lt. Kara Hultgreen, no list of American heroes is complete without the names of some of these extraordinary women. ~ Brian Kilmeade

Moon grew up, lost weight and became a famous singer, which proves that there is no justice in the universe, or that indeed, there is justice. Your interpretation of the denouement mostly depends on your race, creed, hair color, social and economic class and political proclivities -- whether or not you are a revisionist feminist and have a habit of cheering for the underdog. What is the moral of the story? Well, it's a tale of revenge, obviously written from the Chinese American girl's perspective. My intentions are to veer you away from teasing and humiliating little chubby Chinese girls like myself. And that one wanton act of humiliation you perpetrated on the fore or aft of that boat on my arrival may be one humiliating act too many.

For although we are friendly neighbors, you don't really know me. You don't know the depth of my humiliation. And you don't know what I can do. You don't know what is beneath my doing. ~ Marilyn Chin

On the right was a collection of mailboxes, maybe twenty, several of which Daron had met in a previous life with an aluminum Louisville slugger, as well as several blue boxes labeled COUNTY EXAMINER, a few of which had not recovered from their own interrogations, that local version of the great American pastime. D'aron, much to his credit, he'd once thought, was only blowing off steam, and never once - not even one time - cracked lip when the others asked, Who writes Gulls anyway, and when they get a letter, who reads it to them? He now wondered how much of his fear about coming back here was actually guilt, and how much of the guilt was fear - nothing was as it seemed. ~ T. Geronimo Johnson

There was a very serious communist strain among American intellectuals before the war. America was a more tolerant place in those days, and Communists were not treated as pariahs. That ended with the McCarthy era. ~ Ken Follett

He struck a mighty blow for equality, freedom and the American way of life. Jackie Robinson was a good citizen, a great man, and a true American champion. ~ Ronald Reagan

I know Great Spirit is looking down upon me from above, and will hear what I say ... ~ Sitting Bull

Americans like buying American vs. buying from Chavez or buying from the Middle East. ~ John Catsimatidis

When success happens to an English writer, he acquires a new typewriter. When success happens to an American writer, he acquires a new life. ~ Martin Amis

I'm convinced Mr. Reagan would never be elected- I don't think his views are held by a majority of the American people ... it's the Republican party that's going to be committing suicide by nominating candidates of that genre. ~ John Anderson

I have complete confidence in the American people and our legal traditions and the prosecutors, the tough prosecutors ... who specialize in terrorism. ~ Barack Obama

From tattered flags and uniforms to friendships strained to the brink, the women of my country had always been the menders to all the things torn asunder. But now we'd do more than patch with needle and thread. We'd have to weave together a whole tapestry of American life with nothing but our own hands, our own crops, and our own ingenuity. And I would prove myself able to the task. There ~ Stephanie Dray

But while Sasha told us that in America even the most successful men can have but one wife at once
my father had six
and talked about escalators, indoor plumbing, and the various laws of the land, he did not warn us that I would be told by American teenagers that I should go back to Africa. ~ Dave Eggers

If this humor be the safety of our race, then it is due largely to the infusion into the American people of the Irish brain. ~ William Howard Taft

The do-not-call registry is still being challenged in court. Yet, the conclusions of the American people, the legislative branch, and the executive branch are beyond question. ~ George W. Bush

If you think back , the Academy was doing a better job. Think about how many more African Americans were nominated.We need to get better at this. We used to be better at it. ~ George Clooney

The suburbanization and the ghettos that were created as a result of the limits of where [African-Americans] could live in the North [still exist today.] And ... the South was forced to change, in part because they were losing such a large part of their workforce through the Great Migration. ~ Isabel Wilkerson

If you're African American, you are forced into making different choices, in a lot of cases, than you are as a white person. ~ Daryl Hall

I can assure you that gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life. They won't come into your house and steal your children. They won't magically turn you into a lustful cockmonster. They won't even overthrow the government in an orgy of hedonistic debauchery because all of a sudden they have the same legal rights as the other 90 percent of our population ... you know what having these rights will make gays? Full-fledged American citizens just like everyone else, with the freedom to pursue happiness and all that entails. ~ Chris Kluwe

Don't misunderstand me. The terrorist actions of Al-Qaeda were and are unmitigatedly evil. But the astonishing naivety which decreed that America as a whole was a pure, innocent victim, so that the world could be neatly divided up into evil people (particularly Arabs) and good people (particularly Americans and Israelis), and that the latter had a responsibility now to punish the former, is a large-scale example of what I'm talking about - just as it is immature and naive to suggest the mirror image of this view, namely that the western world is guilty in all respects and that all protestors and terrorists are therefore completely justified in what they do. In the same way, to suggest that all who possess guns should be locked up, or (the American mirror-image of this view) that everyone should carry guns so that good people can shoot bad ones before they can get up to their tricks, is simply a failure to think into the depths of what's going on. ~ N. T. Wright

I don't want these. They're mud and they've got no color. Or at least the color is different from what I'm used to. Take any American city, in autumn, or in winter, when the light makes the colors dance and flow, and look at it from a distant hill or from a boat in the bay or on the river, and you will see in any section of the view far better paintings than in this lentil soup that you people have to pedigree in order to love. I may be a thief, but I know color when I see it in the flash of heaven or in the Devil's opposing tricks, and I know mud. Mr. Knoedler, you needn't worry about your paintings anymore. I'm not going to steal them. I don't like them.
Sincerely yours,
P. Soames ~ Mark Helprin

If one of us, any of us, any American is traveling in a town somewhere in America and a medical crisis hits them, for someone who is diabetic or perhaps has heart disease or some other problems, where do we get the records to determine what to do? ~ Timothy Murphy

Education, boy, is not something to prepare you for life. That is a vulgar American error.… It's something to take you out of life. ~ John Horne Burns

Monod proposed an analogy: Just as the biosphere stands above the world of nonliving matter, so an "abstract kingdom" rises above the biosphere. The denizens of this kingdom? Ideas. Ideas have retained some of the properties of organisms. Like them, they tend to perpetuate their structure and to breed; they too can fuse, recombine, segregate their content; indeed they too can evolve, and in this evolution selection must surely play an important role. Ideas have "spreading power," he noted - "infectivity, as it were" - and some more than others. An example of an infectious idea might be a religious ideology that gains sway over a large group of people. The American neurophysiologist Roger Sperry had put forward a similar notion several years earlier, arguing that ideas are "just as real" as the neurons they inhabit. Ideas have power, he said. ~ James Gleick

The ramifications of workplace violence can have a lingering effect on the organization for generations. ~ Asa Don Brown

In 2009, I went to Cannes with a short film in the Kodak emerging program at the American Pavilion. ~ Ryan Coogler