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“In the twentieth century, nowhere on Earth was sex so vigorously suppressed as in America---and nowhere else was there such a deep interest in it.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“We live in oppressive times. We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder ‘censorship,â€� we call it ‘concern for commercial viability.”
― David Mamet

“The importation and enslavement of millions of lack people, the destruction of the American Indian population, the internment of Japanese American, the use of napalm against civilians in Vietnam, all are harsh policies that originated in the authority of a democratic nation, and were responded to with the expected obedience.”
― Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority

“The moment any of them gave up on the difficult work of living with their neighbors--and all of the compromise, frustration, and delay that inevitably entailed--they risked losing everything.”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War

“What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not.”
― James Madison, A Memorial And Remonstrance, On The Religious Rights Of Man: Written In 1784-85

“To be American is to long for whatever our parents fled.”
― Colin Quinn, The Coloring Book: A Comedian Solves Race Relations in America

“Many of the so-called American characteristics,â€� a chronicler of the [WW2 University of Minnesota starvation] experiment wrote, ‘—abounding energy, generosity, optimism—become intelligible as the expected behavior response of a well-fed people.”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

“A meritocracy is a core foundation of American values.”
― David Gottstein, A More Perfect Union: Unifying Ideas for a Divided America

“God is the grand architect of the universe, the source which deserves reverence.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr., The Pursuit of Happiness: A Book of Poems Honoring Our American Values

“The United States has a specific and certain purpose on Earth. Each American has a specific and certain purpose in America.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr., The Pursuit of Happiness: A Book of Poems Honoring Our American Values

“The price of liberty is responsibility, and eternal vigilance.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr., The Pursuit of Happiness: A Book of Poems Honoring Our American Values

“Diversity is supposed to be an input, not an output. What the soul of America desires is unity â€� a more perfect union.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr., The Pursuit of Happiness: A Book of Poems Honoring Our American Values

“United we stand Or divided, we will fall.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr., The Pursuit of Happiness: A Book of Poems Honoring Our American Values

“I understood that there was a right and a wrong way to treat human beings, even those you thought of as your enemies. My American captors held no such values.”
― Mansoor Adayfi, Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo

“If we have a blind spot, it's more likely to involve those values where Americans have long been agreed, not where we are politically polarized. When they go unchallenged across generations, areas of agreement gradually morph into "timeless" truths, timeless truths become truisms, truisms become bipartisan platitudes. By that point, all serious thought has died. The values in question may shape us profoundly, but they've become like the air that we breathe, as invisible to us as they are ever present. And we can never think carefully about values we cannot see.”
― Robert Tracy McKenzie, We the Fallen People: The Founders and the Future of American Democracy

“Americans, for the most part, take themselves entirely too seriously. They rarely see the absurdity of the television shows that they watch, of the hilarious silliness of shopping malls, or the dizzying frivolity of the unending fashions invented and discarded by the market.”
― Andrei Codrescu, The Hole in the Flag: A Romanian Exile's Story of Return & Revolution