Attributed to Clemenceau by Hans Bendix, in "Merry Christmas, America!" The Saturday Review of Literature (1 December 1945), p. 9; this appears to be the earliest reference to such a remark as one by Clemenceau, though earlier, in Frank Lloyd Wright : An Autobiography (1943) there is mention that "A witty Frenchman has said of us: 'The United States of America is the only nation to plunge from barbarism to degeneracy with no culture in between.'" Similar remarks are sometimes attributed without a source to Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw.
Variants:
America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to decadence without the usual interval of civilization.
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilisation in between.
Post-Prime Ministerial
“America has had gifted conservative statesmen and national leaders. But with few exceptions, only the liberals have gone down in history as national heroes.”
Source: An American Dilemma (1944), p. 7
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Gunnar Myrdal 26
Swedish economist 1898–1987Related quotes
Speech in Caxton Hall, London (31 May 1937) upon his election as Conservative leader, quoted in The Times (1 June 1937), p. 18.
Prime Minister
Speech at Hoover Institution Lunch (8 March 1991) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108264
This quote appears to be the basis for the following condensed version, seen on numerous internet sites : Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.
Post-Prime Ministerial
Interview with FBI Senior Special Agent George L. Piro (7 February 2004); National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 279.
“There's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America.”
2015, State of the Union Address (January 2015)
Context: You know, just over a decade ago, I gave a speech in Boston where I said there wasn’t a liberal America or a conservative America; a black America or a white America -- but a United States of America.
Context: There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there's the United States of America.
2000s, 2003, Hope and Conscience Will Not Be Silenced (July 2003)
"Trump Doesn’t Need to Talk Like A Conservative," http://www.unz.com/imercer/trump-doesnt-need-to-talk-like-a-conservative/ The Unz Review, March 19, 2016.
2010s, 2016
n.d., quoted in Saddam Hussein: a political biography (2002) by Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi.