American men

“ We have in this country a class of people whose social standards are beneath contempt, and who consider it almost infectious to brush their mantles against the plainer cloaks of what they choose to call "the lower classes." We can, if we so choose, amuse ourselves in this country by believing that there is such a thing as American lineage. ”

“ The American system stands for the highest hope of an excellent worldly life that mankind has yet ventured,—the hope that men can be improved without being fettered, that they can be saved without even vicariously being nailed to the cross. ”

“ In America, which is the most advanced country industrially, and to a lesser extent in other countries which are approximating to the American condition, it is necessary for the average citizen, if he wishes to make a living, to avoid incurring the hostility of certain big men. And these big men have an outlook—religious, moral, and political—with which they expect their employees to agree, at least outwardly. ”

“ Yet it was to be regretted that there soon appeared a class of men, who, though taken from the bar, the shop, or the more simple occupations of life, to command armies and to negotiate with foreign nation, had imbibed ideas of distinguished rank and ostentatious titles, incompatible with republican principles, and totally repugnant to the views of the zealous advocates of American freedom. ”

“ Be guided by the men in power;
For God and country I must live,
My best for God and country give;
No act of mine that men may scan
Must shame the name American.
To do my best and play my part,
American in mind and heart ”

“ There are these homes I hope and believe—there are noble men and beautiful women finding and making for themselves and each other the highest happiness of which our nature is capable—in every country. But we are not now speaking of the few or of the best individuals, but of averages; and after twenty years of opportunity for observing I have entirely failed to find justification for believing that there is any peculiar inward grace in the American which belies the difference in his outward manner. ”

“ The implication was, and still is, that by virtue of the more comfortable and less trammeled lives which Americans were enabled to lead, they would constitute a better society and would become in general a worthier set of men. ”

“ The equality of men is, to this moment, its corner-stone ... that which develops itself as the sympathy of class, becomes in America the general sentiment of society.... We present an imposing front to the world ”

“ There is what I call the American idea. I so name it, because it seems to me to lie at the basis of all our truly original, distinctive, and American institutions. It is itself a complex idea, composed of three subordinate and more simple ideas, namely: The idea that all men have unalienable rights; that in respect thereof, all men are created equal; and that government is to be established and sustained for the purpose of giving every man an opportunity for the enjoyment and development of all these unalienable rights. ”

“ We have never been driven yet for our peculiar institutions which they talk about, and if we can beat them in peculiar conduct I am mistaken! I have seen men come here, who moved in the highest society on the American continent, and "Who have you got with you?" ”

“ The more one studied the problem the clearer it became that the vast majority of American-born needed a refreshing, and, in many cases, a new conception of American ideals as much as did the foreign-born, and that the latter could never be taught what America and its institutions stood for until they were more clearly defined in the mind of the men and women of American birth. ”

“ I mean of our American blood, which is not drawn from Page 22 any one country, which is not drawn from any one stock, which is not drawn from any one language of the modern world; but free men everywhere have sent their sons and their brothers and their daughters to this country in order to make that great compounded nation which consists of all the sturdy elements and of all the best elements of the whole globe. ”

“ He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and prosperity will one day cause great changes in the world. ”

“ In comparison with other men of their time, the Americans were distinguished by the possession of new political and social ideas, which were destined to be the foundation of the American commonwealth. ”

“ What makes us exceptional -- what makes us American -- is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; ”

“ 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. ”

“ What has been done in the United States of America, has been done, not by the power of money; it has been done, not under the influence of selfish motives; it has been done under the influence of noble ideals, of great minds, and of great hearts directing and guiding and leading the mighty affairs of a great people. And here are representatives, not all, but many, of the foremost representatives of that American spirit which has accomplished everything which you have seen in your journey here. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ America has grown beyond hope in population, the free and bond, in riches, in land, in public material prosperity, but in a literature that represents the higher elements of manliness far less than wise men thought. ”

“ Hang the walls of the school-room with pictures of great Americans. Let incidents from their lives be used as illustrations of moral lessons. Explain the principles and form of our government. Dwell upon the extent of its domain and its vast resources. Define simply the privileges conferred, and the duties imposed, upon the citizens of our government. Four things should be taught them: the three Rs and American history. What is needed among all our citizens, is a great lifting up where a broad view of our great land can be had. ”

“ These are the questions that every American should ask. Every man should take pride in this great Nation—America, with a star of glory in her forehead!—and every man should say, "I hope when I lie down in death I shall leave a greater and grander country than when I was born." ”

“ I spoke with great fervor, dwelling upon the idea which has been a “leit motif,” a leading motive, with me during my whole public life in America: the peculiar significance of the position occupied by this Republic in the progress of mankind toward democratic government, and the consequent responsibility of the American people to the civilized world. It may have an improbable and even absurdly presumptuous sound when it is asserted that foreign-born American citizens may be more fervently, more jealously patriotic Americans than many natives are. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For my part, the America I wish to see is America increasing and prosperous, raising her head in graceful dignity, with freedom and firmness asserting her rights at your bar, vindicating her liberties, pleading her services, and conscious of her merit. ”

“ Americans in their millions. They come in all sizes, shapes and colors—blue-collar workers, blacks, Hispanics, shopkeepers, scholars, service people, housewives, and professional men and women. They are the backbone of America, and we can't move America without moving their hearts and minds as well.
Fellow Americans, our duty is before us tonight. Let us go forward, determined to serve selflessly a vision of man with God, government for people, and humanity at peace. ”

“ 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'm an American. We've translated democracy and brotherhood and equality into enterprise and opportunity and success—and that's getting Americanised. ”

“ And I ask no greater privilege than to be allowed to live to see my potential America become actual: the America that I like to think of as the America of Abraham Lincoln and of Theodore Roosevelt--not faultless, but less faulty. It is a part in trying to shape that America, and an opportunity to work in that America when it comes, that I ask in return for what I owe to her. ”

“ Such Americans are the real foreigners.
Most of those who come to us are predisposed in favor of our institutions. They are generally unacquainted with the true character of those institutions, but they all know that America is the land of freedom and of plenty, and they are favorably inclined toward the ideas and the obligations which are bound up with these blessings. They are open to American influence, and quickly respond to a new and a better environment. ”

“ The wisdom and justice of the American governments, and the virtue of the inhabitants, may, if they are not deficient in the improvement of their own advantages, render the United States of America an enviable example to all the world of peace, liberty, righteousness, and truth. ”

“ A thorough American, who comprehends what America has to do, and means to help on with it, ought to choose to be born in New England, for the vitalized brain, finely-chorded nerves, steely self-control,—then to go West, for more live, muscular passion, succulent manhood, naked-handed grip of his work. ”

“ We want in this country an American system; we wish to carry into operation, into practical effect, ideas, policies, theories in harmony with our surroundings.
This is a great country filled with intelligent, industrious, restless, ambitious people. Millions came here because they were dissatisfied with the laws, the institutions, the tyrannies, the absurdities, the poverty, the wretchedness and the infamous spirit of caste found in the Old World. ”

“ Instead of guarding round the infant republic of America, by a total detachment from foreign connections, affection, or influence, we have already seen the inhabitants of the United States interesting themselves beyond the common feelings of humanity in the operations of European wars, dissensions, politics, and government. ”

“ Older nations, with different systems of government, may be somewhat slow to acknowledge all that justly belongs to us. But we may feel without vanity, that America is doing her part in the great work of improving human affairs. There are two principles, Gentlemen, strictly and purely American, which are now likely to prevail throughout the civilized world. ”

“ Opposite them stands what may be called the American intelligence, ministering as best it can to the wants of young America, and helping to fashion the great desideratum,—a homogeneous nation for the new world. ”

“ It was better than that, for it positively added the last touch of colour to my framed and suspended picture. Here, strikingly then, was an American case, and presumably one of the best; one of the best, that is, for some study of the wondrous problem, admiration and amazement of the nations, who yearn over it from far off: the way in which sane Society and pestilent City, in the United States, successfully cohabit, each keeping it up with so little of fear or flutter from the other. ”