Kansas Quotes

“Ad Astra Per Aspera”

“I grew up in Kansas, General. I'm about as American as it gets.”

“Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore. We must be over the rainbow!”

“Kansas suffers from two great robbers, the Sante Fe railroad and the loan sharks. The common people are robbed to enrich their masters.”

“I'm as corny as Kansas in August
I'm as normal as blueberry pie
No more a smart little girl with no heart
I have found me a wonderful guy.”

“Where the air is so pure, the zephyrs so free,
The breezes so balmy and light,
That I would not exchange my home on the range
For all of the cities so bright.”

“The red man was pressed from this part of the West,
He's likely no more to return
To the banks of Red River where seldom if ever
Their flickering camp-fires burn.”

“Oh, give me a land where the bright diamond sand
Flows leisurely down the stream;
Where the graceful white swan goes gliding along
Like a maid in a heavenly dream.”

“Oh, I love these wild flowers in this dear land of ours,
The curlew I love to hear scream,
And I love the white rocks and the antelope flocks
That graze on the mountain-tops green.”

“John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true and brave,
And Kansas knew his valor when he fought her rights to save;
And now, though the grass grows green above his grave,
His soul is marching on.”

“Home, home on the range,
Where the deer and the antelope play;
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day.”

“Kansas, however whittled down, was still a giant in size and potential productivity. Conceived in cold calculation, born in a rending hatred, she was to be baptized in blood. It was not a christening. It was a deep-river baptism.”

“Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam,
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day.”

“How often at night when the heavens are bright
With the light from the glittering stars,
Have I stood here amazed and asked as I gazed
If their glory exceeds that of ours.”

“'''Land Speculators and One Horse politicians. Blood and thunder, drouth and exploitation. Certainly no new state ever chose a more fitting motto than did young Kansas. Ad Astra per Aspera. It had been and would always be 'To the stars by hard ways.''''”

“One after another, countries such as Spain and Greece, states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Kansas, and American colonies such as Puerto Rico-are becoming laboratories for how much pain can be inflicted on a population for the purpose of satisfying creditors and ideologues.”

“When liberals' presidential nominees consistently fail to carry Kansas, liberals do not rush to read a book titled "What's the Matter With Liberals' Nominees?" No, the book they turned into a bestseller is titled "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Notice a pattern here?”

“Few Americans know how savagely the Civil War raged or how strange and varied were its issues in what is now Oklahoma and the neighboring states of Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas. Rifles for Watie was faithfully written against the historical backdrop of the conflict in this seldom-publicized, Far-Western theater.”

“At the People's College in Fort Scott, Kansas, my mother met Arthur Le Sueur, who with Helen Keller, Eugene Debs, and Charles Steinmetz had founded the greatest workers' school in the country. Thousands of farmers and hillbilly men, miners, and other workers took correspondence courses in workers' law and workers' English and workers' history.”

“The various processes of assimilation, of wrestling a commodious life out of soil, of chaining new communities to the plains, weren't always easy. On one occasion a Russian grand duke came to Kansas to hunt buffalo. The lieutenant governor, honoring him at an official banquet, pointed to a banner on which was emblazoned the state motto, Ad Astra per Aspera, and explained, "Duke, them there words is Latin, and they mean to the stars after a hell of a lot of trouble."”