American character

“ In their sayings and doings is represented the subsoil of American character—the home life and modes of thought of those who made the culture and progress; thus endeavoring, in a pleasing manner, to teach those great truths which lie at the foundation of thrift, progress, and morality. ”

“ In his shrewdness, versatility, self-reliance, wit, as also in his lack of the deeper reverence and imagination, he, I think, more than any other man who has yet lived, represents the full American character. ”

“ To make such a selection is not to create an artificial standard of greatness, or to claim that greatness is in any case hallowed or exalted merely because it is American. It is simply to recognize a peculiar stamp of character, a special make-up of mind and faculties, as the specific product of our national life, not displacing or eclipsing talents of a different kind, but supplementing them, and so adding to the world’s variety. There is an American type of man, and those who have exhibited this type with a certain unmistakable distinction and perfection have been great “Americans.” ”

“ As a result, the American people at the beginning of our national life had certain qualities both of physical and intellectual character,—hardihood, enterprise, daring, independence, love of freedom, perseverance, etc.,—which set them apart from any of their contemporaries. ”

“ I believe that the best things the Old World has said about us and hoped for us, to the effect that we are a disinterested nation and a nation of idealists, are true to the American character and real. ”

“ Here we might, before we leave the local circumstances of America, survey the contrasts exhibited in their conduct by a world of beings who boast their rationality. We might indulge some moments of reflection and calm contemplation on the infinite variety of combinations in the powers of the human mind as well as the contrarieties that make up the character of man. ”

“ There are other spheres of effort in which American character has been more adequately expressed than in words. Nevertheless the books are here, in spite of every defect in national discipline, every flaw in national character; and they deserve the closest attention from all those who are trying to understand the American mind. ”

“ A name, which is great without resorting to the borrowed light of titles and honors, is greater than any possible suffix or affix which could be appended to it.
In conclusion, American manners are but an instance or result of the two predominant American characteristics to which I have already referred, and which reappear in so many other things American. A love of independence and of equality, early inculcated, and a keen abhorrence of waste of time, engendered by the conditions and circumstances of a new country, serve to explain practically all the manners and mannerisms of Americans. ”

“ In speaking to you, men of the greatest city of the West, men of the State which gave to the country Lincoln and Grant, men who pre-eminently and distinctly embody all that is most American in the American character, I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. ”

“ It comes back to what we constantly feel, throughout the country, to what the American scene everywhere depends on for half its appeal or its effect; to the fact that the social conditions, the material, pressing and pervasive, make the particular experiment or demonstration, whatever it may pretend to, practically a new and incalculable thing. This general Americanism is often the one tag of character attaching to the case after every other appears to have abandoned it. ”

“ They illustrate as few other books can the possibilities of American life and reveal how from an almost penniless and friendless immigrant, at times on the verge of want in the search for work, he rose through trying and strenuous experiences by the sheer force of will and character, to well-deserved fame and an honored position in the councils of the mightiest of the land. ”

“ By the way, whenever an Englishman would cry ‘All right!’ an American cries ‘Go ahead!’ which is somewhat expressive of the national character of the two countries. ”

“ Nothing will have been more interesting, surely, than so public a wiping-over of the æsthetic slate, with all the involved collective compunctions and repudiations, the general exhibition of a colossal conscience, a conscience proportionate to the size and wealth of the country. To such grand gestures does the American scene lend itself! ”

“ And yet the most winning charm, the charm which seems to link all other charms together, is the American-ness of everything—oh, an utterly different American-ness from what most people mean when they say "how American that is!" ”

“ But you have there the myth of the essential white America. All the other stuff, the love, the democracy, the floundering into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. ”

“ Among those who claimed in their own hearts social prestige it was long the fashion to shrug their shoulders over the raw eccentricities of their fellow-countrymen, which, as revealed both in public affairs and during European travel, were often startling to precise taste and wofully suggestive of the boaster. Yet those very traits in their truer expression have been the vital force of the people, and give us our savor as a nation. Not to possess them is to be without the characteristics of an American. ”

“ Character is as well delineated as scenery. Dark and light shades—gay and corrupt life—vanity, vice and virtue, all perform their appropriate parts, in making up a goodly number of men and women, who once fairly introduced, carry themselves very naturally through plot and counter plot, to the close of a story which aptly illustrates the elements composing American society, in its various phases. ”

“ Its purpose, as you know better than any one else, is to tell in simple fashion the story of some Americans who showed that they knew how to live and how to die; who proved their truth by their endeavor; and who joined to the stern and manly qualities which are essential to the well-being of a masterful race the virtues of gentleness, of patriotism, and of lofty adherence to an ideal. ”

“ Well, in the first place, let’s not be complacent about what’s happening to American culture, to the American psyche. It isn’t just the money-grubbing, the success-seeking; grubbing and striving, more or less, are a part of living. ”

“ Do they burrow underground, to await their day again?—or in what strange secret places are they held in deposit and in trust? The “American” identity that has profited by their sacrifice has meanwhile acquired (in the happiest cases) all apparent confidence and consistency; but may not the doubt remain of whether the extinction of qualities ingrained in generations is to be taken for quite complete? ”

“ The study of the human character opens at once a beautiful and a deformed picture of the soul. ”

“ No great literature, nor any like style of behaviour or oratory or social intercourse or household arrangements or public institutions, or the treatment by bosses of employed people, nor executive detail, or detail of the army or navy, nor spirit of legislation, or courts or police, or tuition or architecture, or songs or amusements, or the costumes of young men, can long elude the jealous and passionate instinct of American standards. ”

“ I am sure, sir, that you have felt as I have done when coming to the great and prosperous United States, that the American people is one of which we may well be proud—a great and highly civilised people, with whom we are connected by every tie of blood, and every relation of business—they are a people who bear our civilisation, in many things improved, our language, literature, laws, and religion. ”

“ These stars and stripes stand for the struggles for freedom, the brave deeds in the cause of right and justice, the heroism of those who have laid down their lives that their country should still live, and the brother-love that binds together all the men, women, and children who can say, "I am an American!" ”

“ Those circumstances, which most excite and agitate the mind of a nation, likewise mould and shape its future action. What has most deeply interested the American mind? If we trace back the chain of our history to the fearless days of our infancy, we shall find that its absorbing interests have been of a political nature. True, there were some minds among that matchless band of our New England ancestry, who, with the great volume of nature open before them, wrote with a spirit of inspiration, and soared to the high heavens of literature. ”

“ There isn't a single human ambition, or religious trend, or drift of thought, or peculiarity of education, or code of principles, or breed of folly, or style of conversation, or preference for a particular subject for discussion, or form of legs or trunk or head or face or expression or complexion, or gait, or dress, or manners, or disposition, or any other human detail, inside or outside, that can rationally be generalized as “American.” ”

“ But having dispelled the hallucination that we are uniformly irreproachable, I would remind you that, in order to be a good American, it is even more necessary for you to appreciate the fine traits of your countrymen than to be keenly alive to their shortcomings. There are two ways of looking at any community, as there are two ways of looking at life. ”

“ Amid all the public documents of the nation and the several States, in the speeches and writings of favorite men, who represent and so control the public mind, for fifty years, there is little that "stirs the feelings infinite" within you; much to make us more American, not more manly. There is more head than heart; native intellect enough; culture that is competent, but little conscience, or real religion. ”

“ It was an American who bade you hitch your wagon to a star, and you have only to reflect in order to recall the spiritual vigor, the righteous force of will, the strength of aspiring mind, the patriotic courage, the tireless soul-struggle of the early generations of choicely educated, simply nurtured Americans. Their thought and conscience, true and star-seeking even in its limitations, laid the foundations of law and order, of civic liberty and private welfare, of national honor and domestic repute. ”

“ The roots of America's greatness are embedded in the character of its citizens. From our Founders' passion for justice and equality to the social consciousness and humanitarian spirit of today's citizens, the character of our people has inspired the world. Undeniably, character does count for our citizens, our communities, and our Nation, and this week we celebrate the importance of character in our individual lives and in the life of our country. ”

“ You know that the great melting-pot of America, the place where we are all made Americans of, is the public school, where men of every race and of every origin and of every station in life send their children, or ought to send their children, and where, being mixed together, the youngsters are all infused with the American spirit and developed into American men and American women. ”

“ It was so easy for me to grasp the significance of certain general aspects of American life that I felt I was fully competent to state how the American people lived, what their racial, political, and religious tendencies were, what their idioms of speech meant, and to interpret their amorous, martial, dolorous, and joyous moods with perfect accuracy and ease. ”

“ If my opinion—my modest opinion—is that there is no typical American, I, however, believe that there are some traits which are to be found in almost every American. Need I add once more that I now leave aside American gentlemen, and that I look for these traits among the masses of the people, or, if you prefer it, among men who are not gentlemen?
Nations are like human beings: when they are young, they have the qualities and the defects of children. This childishness has given birth, in this country, to what I have no hesitation in calling the chief American trait—inquisitiveness. ”

“ Society.—General Character, etcetera.
The character of the Americans is that of a restless, uneasy people—they cannot sit still, they cannot listen attentively, unless the theme be politics or dollars—they must do something, and, like children, if they cannot do anything else, they will do mischief—their curiosity is unbounded, and they are very capricious. ”

“ The American who comes to this country, and, forgetful of self-respect, of national pride, of the usages of society even, becomes the toad-eater of the great, is represented as a gentleman, as a man of sentiment, and of delicate feelings! ”

“ The truth is that the face of things here throws a sensitive American back on himself—back on his prejudices and national passions, and benumbs for a while the faculty of appreciation and the sense of justice. ”

“ If there required any proof of the dishonest feeling so prevalent in the United States arising from the desire of gain, it would be in the fact, that almost every good story which you hear of an American is an instance of great ingenuity, and very little principle. ”

“ But we cannot watch the individuals long without perceiving the general direction of their march, the ideas that animate them, the common hopes and loyalties that make up the life of their spirit. To become aware of these general tendencies is to understand the "American" note in our national writing. ”

“ For it is the strong personalities that moved in the big events of the world, it is the forceful lives of the men themselves, their preparation in boyhood for successful careers, their struggles for right, their heroism, devotion, and high adventure, as well as the why and wherefore of things, which make history an intense reality to children and young folk. American history treated after such a fashion, may be used educationally to develop a fine, true type of Americanism.
So most of the tales presented here are ones of personality, human and alive. ”