A Shining City On a Hill

John Winthrop first used this biblical phrase (Matthew 5:14) to describe the Puritan colony they were founding on America’s shores. In politics, John F. Kennedy was first to use it to describe America, but it was Ronald Reagan who popularized it, making it a standard part of his campaign speeches and including it in his farewell address:

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.

— Ronald W. Reagan