Henry Louis Gates Jr. Quotes

It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country.

Schools exist in America and have always existed to train responsible citizens of the United States of America. If they don't do that, it's very hard to hold us together as a country, because it's shared values that hold us together.

I feel very strongly about our flag and our country.

We are not born, we do not live for ourselves alone; our country, our friends, have a share in us.

America is a new country, and maybe patriotism helps Americans create unity, since it is a melting pot. But nationalism in Europe has a strong history, as you may know.

The business of education has lay[ed] the foundations for nurseries of wise and good men, to adapt our modes of teaching to the peculiar form of our government . . . . He must be taught to love his fellow creatures in every part of the world, but he must cherish with a more intense and peculiar affection the citizens of Pennsylvania and of the United States.

I’m not a patriot to a flag, I’m a patriot to a land.

Let the one fight for his flag, and the other for his ideal, and let them both imagine that they are fighting for the country; the strife will be colossal.

Well, if you don't have a flag, then you can't have a country. Those are the rules... that I just made up!

We really have to, as a country, recognize that school is where people get their identity not just as a scholar, or a future business person, but as a citizen. And we need to make sure that schools set them up for success as citizens.

I would like to see as many people patriotic to a land as I have seen patriotic to a flag.

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.

NCS - National Citizen Service is a fantastic programme. I want it to be available for every young person in the country.

Nobody I know is opposed to immigration. What we're opposed to is opening the borders and letting noncitizens pour in here and call that immigration. Because that constitutes the diluting of the very foundation of America, and they saw it being done on purpose. And that's why we're on the verge of losing this country.

I certainly wouldn't stand for policies that are gonna end up destroying America, this special place, because once this special place is destroyed and is no longer special, then where is everybody gonna go?

Food can be utilized for economic reasons, like the grain embargo of Carter 40 years ago. You have a political decision, you are going to move the flow of food in a part of the world and not another part of the world. And certainly now, with the way the country is polarized and all that, you wouldn't want to have a French menu, with a French thing - you'd be crucified! Or anything like that. You have to be a real American and apple pie and this and that.

I think it is very important for us to make clear to our children that our country really is great because we're good.

We have to get the federal government out of the business of educating our kids and telling us how to do it. But when you look at how we are failing our kids and how the story that they hear about the United States and about the role we've played in the world and our role as the defender of freedom for millions across the world throughout history, you know, they aren't being prepared to stand up and work and fight and defend this nation.

I'm not politically vocal. I just want what's best for our country. I want our rights respected and those of my son's.

While the rest of the country waves the flag of Americana, we understand we are not part of that. We don't owe America anything - America owes us.

America has an almost obscene infatuation with itself. Has there ever been a big, powerful country that is as patriotic as America? And patriotic in the tinniest way, with so much flag waving? You'd really think we were some poor little republic, and that if one person lost his religion for one hour, the whole thing would crumble. America is the real religion in this country.

To accept your country without betraying it, you must love it for that which shows what it might become. America -- this monument to the genius of ordinary men and women, this place where hope becomes capacity, this long, halting turn of 'no' into the 'yes' -- needs citizens who love it enough to re-imagine and re-make it.

I feel that we have some opportunity in North America to go back and say the American Revolution was the real thing.

Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country.

America is great, because America is good. And it really is up to all of us to make that true, now and in the future, and particularly for our children and our grandchildren.