If you don't know how great this country is, I know someone who does; Russia.

America is the only nation in history which, miraculously, has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

Young man, there is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners.

I would rather have a nod from an American, than a snuff-box from an emperor.

America is the most grandiose experiment the world has seen, but, I am afraid, it is not going to be a success.

America is a mistake, a giant mistake.

There isn't a single human characteristic that can be safely labeled as ''American.''

If its individual citizens, to a man, are to be believed, it always is depressed, and always is stagnated, and always is at an alarming crisis, and never was otherwise; though as a body, they are ready to make oath upon the Evangelists, at any hour of the day or night, that it is the most thriving and prosperous of all countries on the habitable globe.

A trait no other nation seems to possess in quite the same degree that we do -- namely, a feeling of almost childish injury and resentment unless the world as a whole recognizes how innocent we are of anything but the most generous and harmless intentions.