“Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country"
 - Marquis de La Fayette

"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."
 - John Adams

"When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect."
 - Adlai Stevenson

"We need an America with the wisdom of experience. But we must not let America grow old in spirit."
 - Hubert H. Humphrey

"The poet called Miss Liberty's torch, "the lamp beside the golden door." Well, that was the entrance to America, and it still is. . . . The glistening hope of that lamp is still ours. Every promise, every opportunity is still golden in this land. And through that golden door our children can walk into tomorrow with the knowledge that no one can be denied the promise that is America. Her heart is full; her torch is still golden, her future bright. She has arms big enough to comfort and strong enough to support, for the strength in her arms is the strength of her people. She will carry on in the eighties unafraid, unashamed, and unsurpassed. In this springtime of hope, some lights seem eternal; America's is. "
 - Ronald Reagan

"I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."
 - Barack Obama

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
  - Abraham Lincoln