Best 112 quotes in «american dream quotes» category

My definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger" - Billy Connolly

Ni rahisi kushinda vita ya maisha na kuishi mbinguni duniani. Ni vigumu kushinda vita ya dhambi na kuishi mbinguni paradiso.

One of the things, though, that has always afflicted the American reality and the American vision is this aversion to history. History is not something you read about in a book, history is not even the past—it’s the present. Because everybody operates, whether or not we know it, out of assumptions which are produced and produced only by our history. Now the history of this country is not bloodier than other countries, but it’s bloody. It is not more criminal than that of other countries, but it’s criminal. Or in short, it’s not worse than the history of France or England or any country we can name—but it’s different.

On dit de moi que je suis bleue, que parfois je vire au mauve, au violet. Je suis de la couleur du ciel du Michigan.

My town, populated almost entirely by the descendants of white Christian Europeans, had few connections to the outside world, perhaps by choice, and so their resentments and fears festered with little reason to ever be expressed to anyone but one another. I don’t remember much talk of foreign affairs, or of other countries, rarely even of New York, which loomed like a terrifying shadow above us, the place Americans went either to be mugged or to think they were better than everyone else. That was my sense of the outside world: where Americans went to be hurt or to hurt others. When I got into an elite college, I took this small-town defensiveness with me, but slowly discovered that the world was actually kaleidoscopic, full of possibilities.

She was also taking a big risk by hoping this sacrifice would mean something. If Rob turned out like any other rough boy in the neighborhood––if her son wasn't special like she believed he was––she feared the disappointment that would follow too much striving on her part.

Only if government fulfilled its responsibility by fostering a robust economy was it ressonable to hold individuals responsible for working hard and striving to do their best. Pursuing the American Dream, 8, 246

That had been the trouble with him and Betsy: what with his brooding about the past and worrying about the future, there had never been any present at all.

The accomplishments of the women in The Counselors are a testament to the power and promise of the American Dream and are sure to resonate deeply with many young women who have the desire and the ability to make their own unique contributions to this legacy of progress. . . . Just as the women in this book were empowered by the efforts and example of those who came before them, a new generation will be inspired and encouraged by the spirit and achievements of this remarkable group.

The American Dream is a constant reminder that America's true nature and distinctive grandeur is in promising the common man, thr man on the make, a better chance to succeed here than common men enjoy anywhere else on earth. Pursuing the American Dream, 9, 269

the American nation today is infantile so much as adolescent—that is ambivalent in its twin desire for both authoritarian structure and the end of parental hegemony

Sorry to tell you, but that's a very old chestnut. My mother used to say when God slams a door on you, he opens a window.' Tig gave this two seconds of respectful consideration before rejecting it. 'No, that's not the same. I'm saying when God slams a door on you it's probably a shitstorm. You're going to end up in rubble. But it's okay because without all that crap overhead, you're standing in the daylight.' 'Without a roof over your head, it kind of feels like you might die.' 'Yeah, but you might not. For sure you won't find your way out of the mess if you keep picking up bricks and stuffing them in your pockets. What you have to do is look for blue sky.

Strong and cohesive families are better equipped to raise balanced, intelligent, educated children. Government programs that encourage single parent households commit nothing less than cultural malpractice.

The best thing about America is that it gives you space. I like that. I like that you buy into the dream, it's a lie but you buy into it and that's all that matters.

t can be objected that I am speaking of political freedom in spiritual terms, but the political institutions of any nation are always menaced and are ultimately controlled by the spiritual state of that nation. We are controlled here by our confusion, far more than we know, and the American dream has therefore become something much more closely resembling a nightmare, on the private, domestic, and international levels. Privately, we cannot stand our lives and dare not examine them; domestically, we take no responsibility for (and no pride in) what goes on in our country; and, internationally, for many millions of people, we are an unmitigated disaster.

The Chinese dream is an American dream embedded in a Confucian cocoon.

The great American dream that reached out to the stars has been lost to the stripes. We have forgotten where we came from, we don’t know where we are, and we fear where we may be going. Afraid, we turn from the glorious adventure of the pursuit of happiness to a pursuit of an illusionary security in an ordered, stratified, striped society. Our way of life is symbolized to the world by the stripes of military force. At home we have made a mockery of being our brother’s keeper by being his jail keeper. When Americans can no longer see the stars, the times are tragic. We must believe that it is the darkness before the dawn of a beautiful new world; we will see it when we believe it.

The number one focus of government is to help the nation grow, deal with problems, and move forward

The phrase, "American Dream", a lifestyle approach that doesn't require God's power, just ours, was coined in 1931 by James T. Adams.

There is no one story that will replace the American dream, but stories like this one—and there are thousands—can inform the myth or myths we create for building and preserving the next culture. In order to do so, however, we must recognize that we cannot live without myth, for it is an essential part of our humanity. If we attempt to do so—given the fact that something in us needs myth—we will only create more myths that echo the American dream—with themes of heroism, greed, entitlement, narcissism, exploitation, exceptionalism, and myriad abuses of power. How we prepare for and navigate collapse will provide the raw materials for the myths we make and will live by in a postindustrial world.

There is, perhaps, no class of men on the face of the earth, says Captain Bonneville, who lead a life of more continued exertion, peril, and excitement, and who are more enamored of their occupations, than the free trappers of the West. No tail, no danger, no privation can turn the trapper from his pursuit. His passionate excitement at times resembles mania. In vain may the most vigilant and cruel savages best his path, in vain may rocks and precipices and wintry torrents oppose his progress, let but a single track of a beaver meet his eye, and he forgets all the dangers and defies all difficulties. At times, he may be seen with his traps on his shoulder, buffeting his way across rapid streams, amidst floating blocks of ice: at other times, he is to be found with his traps swung on his back clambering the most rugged mountains, scaling or descending the most frightful precipices, searching, by routes inaccessible to the horse, and never before trodden by white man, for springs and lakes unknown to his comrades, and where he may meet with his favorite game. Such is the mountaineer, the hardy trapper of the West, and such, as we have slightly sketched it, is the wild, Robin Hood kind of life, with all its strange and motley populace, now existing in full vigor among the Rocky Mountains.

The story of America is the story of an adventure that began with deep faith, big dreams and humble beginnings.

The streets of America may not have been paved with gold, but they were cobbled in middle-class dreams.

The way the kids of immigrants heard about America, you would think it was not down the stairs and out the door but still across the ocean, a distant place where everything is promised and, for hard work, everything is given. From the day he left his parents' house, Abe [Reles] had to know his father was right, that America promises everything, but he also had to know his father was wrong--America gives nothing. Those things that are promised, they cannot be worked for but must be taken, conned away with good looks, obsequiousness, mimicry; or traded for with bit of your soul or the morals of the stories your parents told; or tricked away with lies; or wrested away with brute force.

Vita ya dhambi hupiganwa katika uwanja wa akili na katika uwanja wa mwili kati ya Shetani na Mungu. Hutumia silaha kuu ya uongo na silaha kuu ya ukweli. Mungu anataka tuujue ukweli. Shetani anataka tuujue uongo. Kushinda vita ya dhambi huna budi kutumia neno la Mungu, kama Yesu alivyolitumia kumshinda Shetani wakati akijaribiwa katika Mlima wa Majaribu wa Jangwa la Yuda.

Was 9/11 not the 20th congress of the American Dream?

Walk my friend – walk the walk of humanity while making your life an emblem of hope for thousands of our Americans.

We believe in the American Dream, not in the socialist nightmare.

Welcome to our America. A land vastly different from what they want us to believe about her.

the Reagan years "produced one of the most dramatic redistributions of income in the nation's history....The income of families in the bottom decile fell by 10.4 percent...while the income of those in the top one percent rose by 87.1 percent." Chain Reaction, 23

Welcome to Hollywood. Here you can be whatever you want! That's the secret of American success! Fake it till you make it!

We need to stop thinking that some Americans are the real Americans, the deserving, the talented, the most patriotic and hardworking, while other can be dismissed as less deserving of the American dream.

We’re better together than we are apart. The American Dream has us looking out for ourselves even at the expense of our neighbors. That shit ain’t true, man.

Well, the vast majority of people don't steal to get ahead. A lot of people work their way up from nothing without stealing." "I don't think a lot of people work their way up from nothing, ever. People like you want to believe it happens all the time. But it really doesn't.

Whether you attribute it to some mysterious triple package or to your own Horatio Alger story, to succeed in America is, somehow, to be complicit with the idea of America—which means that at some level you’ve made peace with its rather ugly past.

Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.

Whether you care about your children's future or just want to share in a stronger land, take a stand. Abraham Lincoln said, "Be sure to put your feet in the right place, and then stand firm.

Your money is your liberty. Without the benefit of the earnings of your own labor, you cannot be free. Insisting on tax reductions is the responsible approach to keeping government small (as it was originally intended to be) and maintaining the liberty of the people.

We cordially believe in the rights of property. We think that normally and in the long run the rights of humanity, coincide with the rights of property... But we feel that if in exceptional cases there is any conflict between the rights of property and the rights of man, then we must stand for the rights of man.

I am the living attestation of the American dream. I am the extolment of this great nation.

With all her heart, Mom believed in opportunity for everyone and privilege for no one. She put her children first, and her faith and trust in the American dream.

I am not living the American Dream; I am living the American fantasy.

What is key to America's understanding of class is the persistent belief - despite all evidence to the contrary - that anyone, with the proper discipline and drive, can move from a lower class to a higher class. We recognize the mobility may be difficult, but the key to our collective self-image is the assumption that mobility is always possible, so failure to move up reflects on one's character.

For many, the American Dream has become a nightmare.

I'm living the American dream.

I'm not the American Nightmare. I am the American Dream!

I believe in the American Dream because I have lived the American Dream.

I was never blinded by the American dream. I have my own dreams. You know what I'm saying? The Joey dream.

My great grandfather, like many, came to this country in search of the American Dream.

The new American Dream is about having an interesting life, not making a lot of money.