Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Quotes

Americans, perhaps more than most people, have pondered the question of who they are and what their country is.

I believe in the country America used to be.

The problem is that people are pulling farther apart, rather than make an effort to get back together. There have been remarkable moments that united this country. It makes everyone feel relieved. Then because of economic stress, political shifts, we get wrenched apart again. I think it's cyclical. I am an optimist by nature. There are moments, the period after 9/11, the way we responded. The election of Barack Obama. There are moments where the country felt good about being American. I'm waiting for that to happen again.

I do believe, in the long term, we will either get back to the principles that built America or we lose this country. And I'm an optimist.

Our parents taught us to love God, love our family and love our country. Their own grandparents were immigrants. Their first language may not have been English, but the hopes and dreams they had for their children were purely American.

Russia is an ancient country with historical, profound traditions and a very powerful moral foundation. And this foundation is a love for the Motherland and patriotism. Patriotism in the best sense of that word. Incidentally, I think that to a certain extent, to a significant extent, this is also attributable to the American people.

I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time [his grandchildren are] my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.

We Americans are lucky to live in a country with a history full of noble ideas, great leaders and awe-inspiring accomplishments. Sadly, many of our elites want no part of it.

The left think they've got a monopoly on this silly idea that we are a nation of immigrants, America's greatness is traceable to its immigrants. I'm sorry. I don't buy that as a stand-alone idea anyway because really what they're trying to say with that is that America's greatness is due to America's diversity, and that has not a thing to do with it. American Greatness is because of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and our country.

Hello my Country I once came to tell everyone your story Your passion was my poetry And your past my most potent glory Your promise was my prayer Your hypocrisy my nightmare And your problems fill my present Are we both going somewhere?

The message for the American youth is that this is a great country and we need to make sure that we pass on a heritage, a lineage and a legacy of American exceptionalism to each and everyone of you so that you can enjoy all the great liberties and freedoms that all the previous generations have had.

If we’re going to pass on the meaning of America to the next generation, it doesn’t happen in the bloodstream. You actually have to teach what America is to the next generation.

In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americans.

It is our duty to keep the memory of our heroes green. Yet they belong to the whole country; they belong to America.

A dangerous fallacy is to repudiate freedom in favor of an unknown future. What else but our own sturdy reliance on freedom can explain the unexampled record this country has made? In a period scarcely twice my own lifetime it has risen from nothingness to become the world's greatest power. It has become the ark of the covenant of freedom.

This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores. Instead, it is that American spirit - that American promise - that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information and benevolence.

There are times when I haven't been proud of America or really proud. But there have been times that I've been incredibly proud of the country.

I do feel very American. I think it's something I'm proud of and proud to be by chance born here. Honestly, that's something I think about.

If you elect me president, we will have a president that believes America is the greatest country in the world and we will have a president that acts like it.

And you must tell the child the legends I told you - as my mother told them to me and her mother to her. You must tell the fairy tales of the old country. You must tell of those not of the earth who live forever in the hearts of the people.

I too have a certain idea of America. Moreover, I would not feel entitled to say that of any other country, except my own. This is not just sentiment, though I always feel ten years younger – despite the jet-lag – when I set foot on American soil: there is something so positive, generous, and open about the people – and everything actually works. I also feel, though, that I have in a sense a share of America.

There is one allegiance that unites us all, and that is to America.

Our country ... when right, to be kept right. When wrong, to be put right.

I've always felt very proud of Wales and being Welsh. People are a bit surprised when I say I'm Welsh. I was born in Wales, went to school in Wales and my mother was Welsh. I'm Welsh. It's my place of birth, my country.