American Identity Quotes

• We are a new nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. That's what makes us Americans. When we sign onto that belief, we sign onto the core American identity, and that's very deep in us.

  Daniel Fried

  Men, Identity, Liberty

  Source: www.politico.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Individualism and mobility are at the core of American identity

  Deborah Tall

  Identity, Mobility, Individualism

  Deborah Tall (1993). “From where We Stand: Recovering a Sense of Place”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Americans may have no identity, but they do have wonderful teeth.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Identity, Teeth, May

  Jean Baudrillard (1989). “America”, p.34, Verso

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Americans are much more American than they are Northerners, Southerners, Westerners, or Easterners ... California Chinese, Boston Irish, Wisconsin German, yes, Alabama Negroes, have more in common than they have apart ... The American identity is an exact and provable thing.

  John Steinbeck

  Boston, California, Chinese

  5 Copy quote

• Guns are part of the American identity.

  Henry Rollins

  Gun, Identity

  5 Copy quote

• Americans should never underestimate the constant pressure on Canada which the mere presence of the United States has produced. We're different people from you and we're different people because of you. Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is effected by every twitch and grunt. It should not therefore be expected that this kind of nation, this Canada, should project itself as a mirror image of the United States.

  Pierre Trudeau

  Sleep, Elephants, Mirrors

  177 Copy quote

• American films are the best films. This is a fact. Cinema is - along with Jazz - the great American art form. And cinema in a very real sense created the American identity that has been exported around the world.

  Ben Dreyfuss

  Art, Real, Identity

  "We Love America, and You Should, Too". James West and Ben Dreyfuss conversation, www.motherjones.com. July 3, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Could it be that violence is as much a part of the American identity as the Constitution, and a vital component to its economic stability?

  Henry Rollins

  Identity, Violence, Constitution

  4 Copy quote

• America's grand strategy did not come from nowhere. It followed from our deeper conception of ourselves, and our American identity. Who are we, Americans? What is our nation? We are not an ethnostate with identity rooted in shared blood. The option of a white man's republic ended at Appomattox.

  Daniel Fried

  Men, White, America

  Source: www.politico.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• My intention is not to repudiate an African American identity but perhaps to resist how labels take hold, or to make it as slow a process as possible. That's more my sense of it.

  Mark McMorris

  African American, Identity, Labels

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• It [9/11 tragedy] has affected us on so many levels: economically, morally, spiritually, ethically. It's been all over the place. A new American identity emerged - we now live in a very different America. This is the power of the definitive event.

  Porochista Khakpour

  America, Tragedy, Identity

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the Shadow of Slavery covers two and a half centuries of black life in New York City, and skillfully interweaves the categories of race and class as they affected the formation of African American identity. Leslie Harris has made a major contribution to our understanding of the black experience.

  Eric Foner

  New York, Race, Class

  8 Copy quote

• Happy World Poetry Day: 'The American identity has never been a singular one and the voices of poets invariably sing, in addition to their own, the voices of those around them.

  Aberjhani

  Voice, Identity, World

  4 Copy quote

• Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) moved from a legitimate to a charismatic role, reversing the course followed by Washington. Yet therewere surface similarities in their careers. Both led military rebellions against English monarchs--Cromwell against Charles I, Washington against George III. Each took local militia--the "train bands" of Cromwell, the colonial levies of Washington--and forged professional armies on a national scale. Each infused a new ethos in his troops--a religious spirit in Cromwell's case, a post-colonial American identity in Washington's.

  Garry Wills

  Religious, Military, Army

  4 Copy quote

• And you know, we were talking about American identity, and where we've come from and where we are and where we're headed. We knew that we wanted to have a hopeful ending and we wanted it to be pro-community, and a pro-democracy type of movie.

  Matt Damon

  Talking, Hopeful, Community

  "Matt Damon Talks ‘Promised Land’, Writing, Directing & Reuniting with Affleck". Interview with Tiffany Rose, screenrant.com. January 4, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source