American t Quotes

“Where the Depression years had aroused a deep sense of concern over how American wealth was distributed and American society structured, the successive crises of the 1960s and early 1970s, by highlighting the contradiction between the destructive capability of American technology and the moral opaqueness of those Americans who had ultimate control over its use, raised questions about the very course of “modern” historical development. After Vietnam, there could be no more easy assumptions about the goodness of American power, no more easy equating of being “modern” with being “civilized.”

“Where the Depression years had aroused a deep sense of concern over how American wealth was distributed and American society structured, the successive crises of the 1960s and early 1970s, by highlighting the contradiction between the destructive capability of American technology and the moral opaqueness of those Americans who had ultimate control over its use, raised questions about the very course of “modern” historical development. After Vietnam, there could be no more easy assumptions about the goodness of American power, no more easy equating of being “modern” with being “civilized.”

“The UN lacked the ability to act without the support of its more powerful members, notably the United States. The American government wanted to avoid a repetition of its unsuccessful intervention in Somalia, in which thirty American troops were killed. President Clinton issued a directive on UN military conditions. The operations would also have to be directly relevant to American interests. These conditions excluded American support for UN intervention to stop the genocide [in Rwanda].”

“I suggest that the Western impact, at least in nineteenth-century China, was overstated (and misstated) by an earlier generation of American historians. An especially egregious example of this, I argue, was American treatment of the Opium War, the objective importance of which was not nearly so great as we—and an almost unanimous corps of Chinese historians—have imagined.”

“One strain of African American thought holds that it is a violent black recklessness—the black gangster, the black rioter—that strikes the ultimate terror in white America. Perhaps it does, in the most individual sense. But in the collective sense, what this country really fears is black respectability, Good Negro Government. It applauds, even celebrates, Good Negro Government in the unthreatening abstract—The Cosby Show, for instance. But when it becomes clear that Good Negro Government might, in any way, empower actual Negroes over actual whites, then the fear sets in, the affirmative-action charges begin, and birtherism emerges.”

“I always thought of myself as more American than Americans when I was living in Germany, because I always had this attitude of can-do, and if you're successful, you can show it, which is a very un-German thing, you know.”

“My mom and dad were divorced, and although they got along very well, my mom thought American television was reprehensible, so I was raised on the BBC. I kind of agreed with her. We watched American news, though.”

“The compulsion to do good is an innate American trait. Only North Americans seem to believe that they always should, may, and actually can choose somebody with whom to share their blessings. Ultimately this attitude leads to bombing people into the acceptance of gifts.”

“It's American to be from somewhere else, and it's American to go from East to West. It's American to seek your fortune someplace other than where you are, or to be escaping something...”

“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.”

“I would like travelers, especially American travelers, to travel in a way that broadens their perspective, because I think Americans tend to be some of the most ethnocentric people on the planet. It's not just Americans, it's the big countries. It's the biggest countries that tend to be ethnocentric or ugly. There are ugly Russians, ugly Germans, ugly Japanese and ugly Americans. You don't find ugly Belgians or ugly Bulgarians, they're just too small to think the world is their norm.”