“The very first words that we, the American nation, spoke were right here in Philadelphia. You know those words: "We the people." It wasn't, "We the conglomerates." It wasn't, "We the corporations."”

— Al Gore

It was, "We the people."
As quoted by the Philadelphia Daily News (21 October 2005).

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The very first words that we, the American nation, spoke were right here in Philadelphia. You know those words: "We the…" by Al Gore?

Al Gore 127

45th Vice President of the United States 1948

Related quotes

“If there wasn't a word for it, would we realize our masochism as much?”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

“We are very shy of asking questions of those who know enough to destroy with one word the hopes we live on.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes book Elsie Venner

Elsie Venner (1859)

“You have to remember one thing about the will of the people: it wasn't that long ago that we were swept away by the Macarena.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

“Then I went to bed and cried into my pillow. I wasn't sad, not at all. It was just so beautiful to have an intense feeling and the right words at the same time.

What are we but our stories?”

James Patterson book Sam's Letters to Jennifer

Source: Sam's Letters to Jennifer

“Sometimes we don't need words. Rather, it's words that need us. If we were no longer here, words would lose their whole function. They would end up as words that are never spoken, and words that aren't spoken are no longer words.”

Haruki Murakami book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

“The reason we were defeated in so far as defence played a role is that people believe we were in favour of unilaterally disarming ourselves. It wasn't the confusion. It was the unilateralism that was the damaging thing.”

Denis Healey (1917–2015) British Labour Party politician and Life peer

Explaining Labour's defeat in the 1983 election in an interview in Marxism Today (April 1986) http://banmarchive.org.uk/collections/mt/pdf/86_04_24.pdf
1980s

“Tragically, the rights of those who were here long before us were not always respected. For those peoples and their nations, from the heart of American democracy, I wish to reaffirm my highest esteem and appreciation. Those first contacts were often turbulent and violent, but it is difficult to judge the past by the criteria of the present. Nonetheless, when the stranger in our midst appeals to us, we must not repeat the sins and the errors of the past. We must resolve now to live as nobly and as justly as possible, as we educate new generations not to turn their back on our 'neighbors' and everything around us.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

2010s, Address to the United States Congress

“We're not a fragile people. We're not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled. Our power comes from those immortal declarations first put to paper right here in Philadelphia all those years ago: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that We the People, can form a more perfect union.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, DNC Address (July 2016)
Context: America is already great. America is already strong. And I promise you, our strength, our greatness, does not depend on Donald Trump. In fact, it doesn’t depend on any one person. And that, in the end, may be the biggest difference in this election — the meaning of our democracy.
Ronald Reagan called America “a shining city on a hill.” Donald Trump calls it “a divided crime scene” that only he can fix. It doesn’t matter to him that illegal immigration and the crime rate are as low as they’ve been in decades — (applause) — because he’s not actually offering any real solutions to those issues. He’s just offering slogans, and he’s offering fear. He’s betting that if he scares enough people, he might score just enough votes to win this election.
And that's another bet that Donald Trump will lose. And the reason he'll lose it is because he’s selling the American people short. We're not a fragile people. We're not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled. Our power comes from those immortal declarations first put to paper right here in Philadelphia all those years ago: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that We the People, can form a more perfect union.
That's who we are. That’s our birthright — the capacity to shape our own destiny.

“We, we respect very much what the American want to do uh…but, you know sometime the American way of life and the…uh American democracy maybe uh cannot work in a country like mine, you know, in South Vietnam. Uh…so, we, we can have the principle and adapt that in the country but we cannot adapt what you have here, you know, eh two houses, all that stuff, you know, and changing the president every four year. You have many people here who can be leader of the country. We have a few in Vietnam, a few who can uh you know uh lead the country because education, because the training, because all that uh, background that we must have, you know.”

Nguyen Khanh (1927–2013) South Vietnamese soldier

Evaluation of democracy and the American presence in the South
1980s, Interview with Nguyen Khanh (1981)

“They say we have a free press, but we do not. We have a press that is indentured to advertising revenue, and they themselves are now conglomerate corporations... and five big ones control most of the circulation and viewership...”

Ralph Nader (1934) American consumer rights activist and corporate critic

"American Mythology and the Loss of Democracy" (2018)

“The very first words that we, the American nation, spoke were right here in Philadelphia. You know those words: "We the people." It wasn't, "We the conglomerates." It wasn't, "We the corporations."”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Al Gore 127

Related quotes

Related topics