Words Across America

France was a land, England was a people, but America, having about it still that quality of the idea, was harder to utter - it was the graves at Shiloh, and the tired, drawn, nervous faces of its great men, and the country boys dying in the Argonne for a phrase that was empty before their bodies withered. It was a willingness of the heart.
-- The Crack-Up
F. Scott Fitzgerald

America is not just a power: it is a promise. It is not enough for our country to be extraordinary in might; it must be exemplary in meaning. Our honor and our role in the world finally depend on the living proof that we are a just society.
-- Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1968

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.
-- Inaugural address, 1953
Dwight D. Eisenhower

U.S.A. is the world's greatest rivervalley fringed with mountains and hills. U.S.A. is a set of bigmouthed officials with too many bankaccounts. U.S.A. is a lot of men buried in their uniforms in Arlington Cemetery. U.S.A. is the letters at the end of an address when you are away from home. But mostly U.S.A. is the speech of the people.
-- U.S.A.
John Dos Passos

The office of America is to liberate, to abolish kingcraft, priestcraft, caste, monopoly, to pull down the gallows, to burn up the bloody statute-book, to take in the immigrant, to open the doors of the sea and the fields of the earth.
-- 1867 essay, Journals
Ralph Waldo Emerson

America is God's crucible, the great melting pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming!
-- The Melting Pot
Israel Zangwill

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear
-- I Hear America Singing
Walt Whitman

I see not America only, not only Liberty's
nation but other nations preparing,
I see tremendous entrances and exits, new
combination, the solidarity of races.
-- Years of the Modern
Walt Whitman

It is a noble land that God has given us: a land that can feed and clothe the world; a land whose coastlines would enclose half the countries of Europe; a land set like a sentinel between the two imperial oceans of the globe.
Albert J. Beveridge, speech, 1898

Throughout its history, America has given hope, comfort and inspiration to freedom's cause in all lands. The reservoir of good will and respect for America was not built up by American arms or intrigue; it was built upon our deep dedication to the cause of human liberty and human welfare.
-- Call to Greatness, 1954
Adlai E. Stevenson

You cannot conquer America.
-- William Pitt, speech, 1777