American Values Quotes

I think Guantanamo, has been synonymous with the staining of American values and American legal tradition. ~ Mark Shields

Most people who call themselves conservatives can't explain the American value system. ~ Dennis Prager

The Democratic party in Louisiana just continued to move father and farther away from basic American values and farther away from the voters of Louisiana. And much farther away from me. So I just couldn't take it anymore. And recently, there was some comments made in the Senate, the comments were that if anyone opposes what we frequently call Obamacare, if anyone opposes it, they do so only because the President is an African-American, and therefore, that position is racist. My mother, who's 103 years old, called me on the telephone when she heard that. She said 'Boy, I don't want you to be involved in anything like that. I hope you disassociated yourself from that' and I was on the verge of doing it anyway, and that was just the last straw, ~ Elbert Guillory

Civil rights for all Americans, black, white, red, yellow, the rich, poor, young, old, gay, straight, et cetera, is not a liberal or a conservative value. It's an American value that I would think that we pretty much all agree on. ~ Jerry Falwell

I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington ... I'm asking you to believe in yours.
Keeping faith with those who serve must always be a core American value and a cornerstone of American patriotism. Because America's commitment to its servicemen and women begins at enlistment, and it must never end. ~ Barack Obama

In my book I don't just demonstrate that free enterprise is the most efficient way of organizing an economy - which it is. I also show that it's an expression of American values, and, thus, that a fight for free enterprise is very much a fight for our culture. ~ Arthur C. Brooks

I love the idea of a beautiful neighborhood that represents the very best of American values, but also as a fun backdrop to some darker, deliciously sneaky things going on in people's lives. ~ Marc Cherry

I believe strongly that my books are entertainment. I hope you might learn a thing or two while reading them, but first and foremost, my job is to entertain you. If I'm waving a flag in Hot Target, it's the same flag I've always waved in all my books - the American flag. And that's a flag that's supposed to stand for acceptance and understanding. For freedom for all - and not just freedom for all Americans, but freedom for all of the diverse and wonderful people living on this planet; freedom to live their lives according to their definitions of freedom. It's a flag that's supposed to stand for real American values like honor and honesty and peace and love and hope. ~ Suzanne Brockmann

It would serve the Americans right if we emptied the prisons and let the subversives take power. They'd soon show Washington just how much they appreciate good old American values. ~ Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

I think that's why I'm so well-suited to this time, because I think the values reflect really profound American values, and I think my agenda would be the best way to really get Americans once again to feel more confident and more optimistic about our future and deliver results, which I think is what it's about. ~ Hillary Clinton

I want people to hear what I think about these foundational American values of personal responsibility, resilience, family and faith, there are things that people can learn from somebody who leads a state like Ohio which is, frankly, a microcosm of the country. ~ John Kasich

All Americans value the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press, and I believe this is essential for our continued way of life. But with this freedom comes responsibility. ~ Steven Hatfill

I know a bit about his [Sirk] life, but it's more about his style than biography. He was European and came out of a theater background, and could easily be defined as 'Brechtian.' He was expressionistic in his films, and was an example of those intensely intellectual artists who ended up working for American studios, and was handed the Ladies Home Journal and asked to adapt the stories for the screen. He found ways to use his artistry to make them interesting and nuanced, while critiquing American values in the process. ~ Todd Haynes

Tragedy happens - "tragic mistakes" happen - when men act according to their flawed natures, in fulfillment of their preordained destinies. The tragedy of the four killers of Amadou Diallo is that their deeds were made possible by their general preconceptions about black people and poor neighborhoods; by a theory of policing that encourages them to be rigid and punitive toward petty offenders; and by a social context in which the possession and use of firearms is so normative as to be almost beyond discussion. The tragedy of the street vendor Amadou Diallo is that he came as an innocent to the slaughter, made vulnerable by poverty and by the color of his skin. And the tragedy of America is that a nation which sees itself as leading the world toward a global future in which the American values of freedom and justice will be available for everyone fails so frequently and so badly to guarantee that freedom and that justice for so many people within its own frontiers. ~ Salman Rushdie

I believed then, and continue to believe now, that the benefits to our security and freedom of widely available cryptography far, far outweigh the inevitable damage that comes from its use by criminals and terrorists ... I believed, and continue to believe, that the arguments against widely available cryptography, while certainly advanced by people of good will, did not hold up against the cold light of reason and were inconsistent with the most basic American values. ~ Matt Blaze

We live in oppressive times. We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder 'censorship,' we call it 'concern for commercial viability. ~ David Mamet

The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical. And that is what the perception is by the American Left who hates Christendom ... What I'm talking about is onward American soldiers. What we're talking about are core American values. ~ Rick Santorum

United States Government needs to acknowledge and respect our sovereignty, treaties, traditional Native American values, and our human rights as a people, which under the law as written we deserve, and which should be protected. ~ Leonard Peltier

It's a lot of anti-gay, racist humor - which people like in America - all couched in 'I'm telling it like it is.' He's in the right place at the right time for that gee-shucks, proud-to-be-a-redneck, I'm-just-a-straight-shooter-multimillionaire-in-cutoff-flannel-selling-ring-tones act. That's where we are as a nation now. We're in a state of vague American values and anti-intellectual pride. ~ David Cross

So he started writing these novels set in Small Town Georgia about folks with Good American Values who Fall in Love and then contract Life-Threatening Diseases and Die. I'm ~ Stephanie Perkins

I fully support your efforts to stamp out sexual assault in the United States military and believer that there is nothing in (Military Justice Improvement Act) that is inconsistent with the responsibility or authority of command. Your efforts in this regard have much broader implications that will actually strengthen the 'good order and discipline' of our military, which I believe accounts for much of the resistance that S967 is receiving ... Protecting the victims of these abuses and restoring American values to our military culture is long overdue. ~ Dave McGinnis

Iran is not a make-believe country. It is a real country populated by some 75 million people - real people; including, I daresay, a majority who are philosophically and by education inclined toward the modern, secular world, and particularly American values. ~ Bob Barr

What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not. ~ James Madison

I make no apologies for us wanting to do this [bombing Iraq and Syria] appropriately and in a way that is consistent with American values. ~ Barack Obama

Americans are very easygoing people. If the added attention and great visibility that I have been able to generate can help open doors and expose more Chinese to American values and the American way of life, that is great. ~ Gary Locke

I realized that all my life, my values were based upon typical middle-class American values: hard work, doing good, living well, owning things, following the rules & being the best I can be ... but God clearly says, those are not MY values. I value justice, mercy & humility. ~ John Green

You know, I think it's so ironic that we're calling hard work, striving for excellence, don't blame others, you know, don't give up, that we're calling these, quote, 'Chinese values,' 'cause I always thought of them as American values. ~ Amy Chua

I like to call the ethos I grew up with 'Oklahoma values.' But you'd be just as accurate if you said 'American values.' Except for our lack of a seacoast, Oklahoma has a little bit of just about everything that's American. ~ J. C. Watts

It's important for American soldiers to be culturally sensitive when deployed in foreign countries. But it's just as important for the U.S. never to renounce the most fundamental American values, which, after all, are also universal values. ~ Gary Bauer

I feel a little schizophrenic because my life is so totally different from here, obviously. And the French values are so different from American values. ~ Adrian Lyne

It is crucial that civil liberties in this country be preserved otherwise the terrorists will win the battle against American values without firing another shot. ~ Russ Feingold

America, the great liberator, is in desperate need of being liberated from itself
from its own excesses and arrogance. And the world needs to be liberated from American values and culture, spreading across the planet as if by divine providence. ~ Kalle Lasn

Libertarianism is what you probably already believe: Libertarian values are American values. Libertarianism is America's heritage of liberty, patriotism and honest work to build a future for your family. It's the idea that being free and independent is a great way to live. That each of us is a unique individual, with great potential. That you own yourself, and that you have the right to decide what's best for you. Americans of all races and creeds built a great and prosperous country with these libertarian ideals. Let's use them to build America's future. ~ David Bergland

Privacy, self-reliance, choice -- all these can and must remina core American values. Yet so too must we remember that other core American value, the value of community. And we must redefine community more broadly to include not just our street or our tract, but our town, our metropolis, our region. ~ William Fulton

President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values. ~ George Soros

On the road to equality there is no better place for blacks to detour around American values than in forgoing its example in the treatment of its women and the organization of its family. ~ Eleanor Holmes Norton

It was around the time of the divorce that all traces of decency vanished, and his dream of being the next great Southern writer was replaced by his desire to be the next published writer. So he started writing these novels set in Small Town Georgia about folks with Good American Values who Fall in Love and then contract Life-Threatening Diseases and Die.
I'm serious.
And it totally depresses me, but the ladies eat it up. They love my father's books and they love his cable-knit sweaters and they love his bleachy smile and orangey tan. And they have turned him into a bestseller and a total dick.
Two of his books have been made into movies and three more are in production, which is where his real money comes from. Hollywood. And, somehow, this extra cash and pseudo-prestige have warped his brain into thinking that I should live in France. For a year.Alone.I don't understand why he couldn't send me to Australia or Ireland or anywhere else where English is the native language.The only French word I know is oui, which means "yes," and only recently did I learn it's spelled o-u-i and not w-e-e.
At least the people in my new school speak English.It was founded for pretentious Americans who don't like the company of their own children. I mean, really. Who sends their kid to boarding school? It's so Hogwarts. Only mine doesn't have cute boy wizards or magic candy or flying lessons.
Instead,I'm stuck with ninety-nine other students. There are twenty-five people ~ Stephanie Perkins

There's very little dislike of Americans in the world, shown by repeated polls, and the dissatisfaction - that is, the hatred and the anger - they come from acceptance of American values, not a rejection of them, and recognition that they're rejected by the U.S. government and by U.S. elites, which does lead to hatred and anger. ~ Noam Chomsky

There are those who would draw a sharp line between power politics and a principled foreign policy based on values. This polarized view - you are either a realist or devoted to norms and values - may be just fine in academic debate, but it is a disaster for American foreign policy. American values are universal. ~ Condoleezza Rice

American values and legal traditions do not permit the indefinite detention of people beyond our borders. ~ Barack Obama

We need to aggressively take on radical Islamic terrorism but not at the expense of our American values. ~ Joe Biden

Our American values are not luxuries but necessities, not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself. Our common vision of a free and just society is our greatest source of cohesion at home and strength abroad, greater than the bounty of our material blessings. ~ Jimmy Carter

It's not a career for anyone who needs or values security. It's a career for gamblers. Every time you write a book you roll the dice again. ~ George R R Martin

Feeling that everyone else was so much more powerful and sophisticated than he was, he had lost sight of his true values, suspended his critical faculties, and placed his trust in his superiors. His reward had been treachery. He ~ Ken Follett

I think Islam, for me, helped me see how similar we all are. If my views are not traditional it's because of being raised in American society. Things that are taboo in an Islamic society are magnified in this society: drinking, extramarital affairs, all kinds of stuff like that. I have to apply the human aspect of all our culture dictates ... ~ Chali 2na

The New World Order is a more palatable name for the Anglo American world empire. It's the planetary domination of London, New York, Washington over the rest of the world. It's hard to get people to join that or think they have a part in it if you called it the Anglo American world empire. If you call it the New World Order, then people in India or some place like that or the European Union might think, "Well, there's something there for us too." But that's not what it is; it's the Anglo American New World Order. ~ Alex Jones

We have trains to hop, voyages to embark on, and rides to hitch. And then there's the great American wild - vanishing but still there - ready to impart its wisdom from an Alaskan peak or a patch of grass growing in a crack of a city sidewalk. And no matter how much sprawl and civilization overtake our wilds, we'll always have the boundless wildlands in ourselves to explore. ~ Ken Ilgunas

Russian," she replied with a nod. "Born in Kimry. But a Muscovite for most of my adult life. North American?" "Montana. Farming collective." "I hear Montana is nice. ~ James S.A. Corey

During the settling of the American colonies, it was said that the Spaniards would first build a church, the Dutch would first build a fort and the English a tavern. Welcome to Charleston, an English colony founded in 1670. ~ Mark R. Jones

Statisticians report that television is watched over six hours a day in the average American household. I don't know any fiction writers who live in average American households. I suspect Louise Erdrich might. Actually I have never seen an average American household. Except on TV. ~ David Foster Wallace

Stillness is expected at every cemetery. It's appropriate for several reasons, not the least of which is the peacefulness the deceased finally have earned. The stillness at a military cemetery is all the more moving, given the contrast between the utter silence there and the din of battle that no doubt attended the deaths of many of the 5,329 American military personnel buried at Ardennes. ~ Tucker Axum

One may reasonably ask: Why do people cling to the values and practices of the past, when they so obviously no longer work? Long-standing thought patterns are hard to overcome because they often appear to serve the interests of the individual, and old ways of thinking are simpler and easier to handle. In a two-valued way of thinking, as in good and bad, right and wrong, love and hate, cause and effect, very little logical analysis is involved. ~ Jacque Fresco

American Sniper focuses on a soldier with 160 kills, or as Harvey Weinstein calls it, a slow morning ~ Neil Patrick Harris

What began as a bitter dispute over Union and States' Rights, ended as a struggle over the meaning of freedom in America. At Gettysburg in 1863, Abraham Lincoln said perhaps more than he knew. The war was about a new birth of freedom. ~ Bruce Catton

American universities are organized on the principle of the nuclear rather than the extended family. Graduate students are grimly trained to be technicians rather than connoisseurs. The old German style of universal scholarship has gone. ~ Camille Paglia

May our land be a land of liberty, the seat of virtue, the asylum of the oppressed, a name and a praise in the whole Earth, until the last shock of time shall bury the empires of the whole world in one common undistinguished ruin! ~ Joseph Warren

When the citizens of a nation have been made to love and adhere to values and virtues, then they make better choices. ~ Sunday Adelaja

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

President Obama is one of the great political knife-fighters in modern history. He is a failed president - his economy is bleak, his foreign policy bleaker, his vision for American even bleaker still. But he wins. ~ Ben Shapiro

There have been times throughout American history where what is right is not the same as what is legal. Sometimes to do the right thing you have to break the law. ~ Edward Snowden

When a woman steps out of line and contravenes the feminine norm, whether on social media on on the Victorian street, there is a tacit understanding that somone must put her back in her place. Labelling the victims as 'just prostitutes' permits writing about Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Kate and Mary Jane even today to continue to disparage, sexualize and dehumanize them; to continue to reinforce values of madonna/whore. ~ Hallie Rubenhold

The Qur'an had begun to develop a primitive just war theory. In the steppes, aggressive warfare was praiseworthy; but in the Qur'an, self-defense was the only possible justification for hostilities and the preemptive strike was condemned.5 War was always a terrible evil, but it was sometimes necessary in order to preserve decent values, such as freedom of worship. Even here, the Qur'an did not abandon its pluralism: synagogues and churches as well as mosques should be protected. The Muslims felt that they had suffered a fearful assault; their expulsion from Mecca was an act that had no justification. Exile from the tribe violated the deepest sanction of Arabia; it had attacked the core of the Muslims' identity. ~ Karen Armstrong

I think historically modern economics, capitalist economics, tends to erode moral categories ... And this is where I think the right gets capitalism wrong. They kind of assume that there is a moral equivalence or moral valence to capitalism, but I tend to think that economics erodes all the kind of cultural taboos and inhibitions and values it comes into contact with. ~ Michael Pollan

From 1976 to 1983, Washington supported a devastating military dictatorship in Argentina that ran all branches of government, outlawed elections, and encouraged school and business leaders to provide information on subversive people. The administration took control of the police, banned political and union organizations, and tried to eliminate all oppositional elements in the country through harassment, torture, and murder. Journalists, students, and union members faced a particularly large amount of bloody repression, thus ridding the nation of a whole generation of social movement leaders. As was the case in other Latin American countries, the threat of communism and armed guerrilla movements was used as an excuse for Argentina's dictatorial crackdowns. Hundreds of torture camps and prisons were created. Many of the dead were put into mass graves or thrown out of places into the ocean. Five hundred babies of the murdered were given to torturers' families and the assets of the dead totaling in the tens of millions of dollars, were all divided up among the perpetrators of the nightmare. Thirty thousand people were killed in Argentina's repression. ~ Benjamin Dangl

The American citizen must be made aware that today a relatively small group of people is proclaiming its purposes to be the will of the People. That elitist approach to government must be repudiated. ~ William E. Simon

There was tremendous animus to President [Barack] Obama. Many of people said he was un-American, not a Christian and worse. ~ Mara Liasson

Nature is very un-American. Nature never hurries. ~ William George Jordan

There is, in fact, no need to drag politics into literary theory: as with South African sport, it has been there from the beginning. I mean by the political no more than the way we organize our social life together, and the power-relations which this involves; and what I have tried to show throughout this book is that the history of modern literary theory is part of the political and ideological history of our epoch. From Percy Bysshe Shelley to Norman N. Holland, literary theory has been indissociably bound up with political beliefs and ideological values. Indeed literary theory is less an object of intellectual enquiry in its own right than a particular perspective in which to view the history of our times. Nor should this be in the least cause for surprise. For any body of theory concerned with human meaning, value, language, feeling and experience will inevitably engage with broader, deeper beliefs about the nature of human individuals and societies, problems of power and sexuality, interpretations of past history, versions of the present and hopes for the future. It is not a matter of regretting that this is so - of blaming literary theory for being caught up with such questions, as opposed to some 'pure' literary theory which might be absolved from them. Such 'pure' literary theory is an academic myth: some of the theories we have examined in this book are nowhere more clearly ideological than in their attempts to ignore history and politics altogether. Literary theor ~ Terry Eagleton

I learned from them that genuine decency and professional competitiveness weren't mutually exclusive. In fact, true integrity, a sense of knowing who you are and being guided by your own clear sense of right and wrong is a kind of secret weapon. They trusted in their own instincts. They treated people with respect. And over time, the company came to represent the values they live by. ~ Robert Iger

Secession is a deeply American principle. This country was born through secession. ~ Ron Paul

These same people who accuse Planned Parenthood of 'targeting' African-American children, they care about you only while you're in the womb. The minute you crown, you're on your own. ~ Gwen Moore

Whether they did or didn't, America was certainly safe between 2000 and 2008. I don't remember any terrorist attacks on American soil during that period of time. ~ Eric Bolling

Some may remember, if you have good memories, that there used to be a concept in Anglo-American law called a presumption of innocence, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Now that's so deep in history that there's no point even bringing it up, but it did once exist. ~ Noam Chomsky

The kingdom values you don't know you cannot manifest ~ Sunday Adelaja

I demand riches in definite terms; I have a definite plan for acquiring riches;I am engaged in carrying out my plan, and I am giving an equivalent,in useful service, of the value of those riches I demand. ~ Andrew Carnegie

One thing I didn't understand in life was that I had $100,000,000 in the bank and I couldn't buy happiness. I had everything: mansions, yachts, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, but I was depressed. I didn't know where I fitted in. But then I found family and friends and I learned the value of life. ~ Vanilla Ice

My ardent desire is, and my aim has been ... to comply strictly with all our engagements foreign and domestic; but to keep the U States free from political connections with every other Country. To see that they may be independent of all, and under the influence of none. In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home. ~ George Washington

World will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion ... ~ Jeff Shaara

Virtually all the trends that matter are making a mockery of the industry's ritual incantations about the values and virtues of a free press in a free society. ~ Hodding Carter III

Developing inner values is much like physical exercise. The more we train our abilities, the stronger they become. The difference is that, unlike the body, when it comes to training the mind, there is no limit to how far we can go. ~ Dalai Lama