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American Dream Quotes

American Dream quote from classy quote

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

~ Regina Lee Blaszczyk

Regina Lee Blaszczyk America American Dream American History Dreams The American Dream

In my heart, I am American, and I believe I have a free will and can take charge of my own destiny.

~ Ruth Ozeki

Ruth Ozeki American Dream Believe In Yourself Destiny Freedom Proudness Youth

The way of the consumerist culture is to spend so much energy chasing happiness that it has none left to be happy.

~ Criss Jami

Criss Jami American Dream Chasing Civilization Consumer Consumerism Content Culture Disappointment Discontent Dissatisfaction Economy Energy Freedom Gluttony Greed Happiness Joy Letdown Materialism Miserable Miserable Life Money Peace Products Rat Race Rush Hour Satisfaction Selfishness Society Things

Denying the popular vote is un-American and anti-democratic.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Dashanne Stokes American American Culture American Dream Democracy Democracy Freedom Democracy Gone Wrong Democracy In America Democracy Voting Democratic Electoral College Government Government Quotes Politics Politics Of The United States Politics Quotes Popular Vote Vote Voter Voters Voters And Voting Voting Voting Rights Voting System

I live in a house over there on the Island, and in that house there is a man waiting for me. When he drove up at the door I drove out of the dock because he says I’m his ideal.

~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald America American Dream Fitzgerald Jazz Age Stories Short Stories Women

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.

~ Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass American Dream History

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.

~ James Baldwin

James Baldwin America American Dream History United States United States Of America Us Usa

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.

~ Vijay Iyer

Vijay Iyer American Dream Complicity History Success

I was once driven north along Central Park, all the way from Chinatown. We hailed the cab in front of a building where Orthodox Jews still lived, so they shut down an elevator on Saturdays. In the taxi, I was with my mother. We were visiting her aunt, my great aunt, who was 93. She had no memory of the old country, Lithuania, but she'd been born there. Her parents escaped the pogroms so she could survived a century here. Her American prosperity was half a century of subsistence wages and thirty years of Medicare in an elevator building. The old country for the cab driver was Bangladesh, and he was a talker. He'd just graduated from college, and his prospects were good. He'd majored in a practical field, network engineering or something like that. Young and optimistic, he spoke fluent English. His big idea was to keep his countrymen out of the United States. America was great, but if he got overrun with foreigners, his kind in particular, it would be ruined. Bangladesh is hot and crowded. Why would want to make America like that. He said this in all sincerity.

~ Alex Kudera

Alex Kudera American Dream Old Country Work

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

~ Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj Žižek American Dream Capitalism Communism Reality

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.

~ Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton American Dream Feminism Inspirational President

The American Dream has become a death sentence of drudgery, consumerism, and fatalism: a garage sale where the best of the human spirit is bartered away for comfort, obedience and trinkets. It's unequivocally absurd.

~ Zoltan Istvan

Zoltan Istvan Absurd Absurdism American Dream Culture Modern Society Society

Forget the American dream...whats your dream? The thing that keeps you up at night...the thing that makes you happy...the thing that keeps your spirit going. Do that thing. Don't label it a hobby or what you do in your spare time type of thing...label that thing you do the thing you love to do. The thing you were born to do. When you stop doing what you love you lose a huge part of yourself. Don't get lost.

~ Jill Telford

Jill Telford American Dream Dream Life Living Scary

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

~ Lily Amis

Lily Amis America American Dream Hollywood Success Quotes

I met Jack Kennedy in November, 1946. We were both war heroes, and both of us had just been elected to Congress.

~ Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer American Dream Literature Opening Lines

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

~ Sherry Marie Gallagher

Sherry Marie Gallagher 1960S Abuse Adventure American Dream Civil Unrest Contemporary Fiction Counterculture Drama Folk Friendship Immigrants Intimacy Life Literature Love Story Music Positive Ending Recovery Rock N Roll Romance Tragedy Vietnam Visions War

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.

~ Trevor D. Richardson

Trevor D. Richardson Alone American Dream Apart Community Dream Dreams Hope Independence Joe Vagrant Neighbors Shit Solidarity Together Truth Unity

So we navigate mostly by dead reckoning, and deduction from what clues we find. I keep a compass in one pocket for overcast days when the sun doesn't show directions and have the map mounted in a special carrier on top of the gas tank where I can keep track of miles from the last junction and know what to look for. With those tools and a lack of pressure to 'get somewhere' it works out fine and we just about have America all to ourselves.

~ Robert M. Pirsig

Robert M. Pirsig American Dream Inspirational Travel

If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.

~ George Monbiot

George Monbiot American Dream Bootstraps Hard Work Wealth

It was in 1931 that the historian James Truslow Adams coined the phrase “the American dream.”The American dream is not just a yearning for affluence, Adams said, but also for the chance to overcome barriers and social class, to become the best that we can be. Adams acknowledged that the United States didn’t fully live up to that ideal, but he argued that America came closer than anywhere else.

~ Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof America American Dream Improvement James Truslow Adams United States Wealth

I've never felt that the American Dream was owed to me. I never felt that I was entitled to this Dream. This is why I laid the cobblestone before me for this Dream to be achieved.

~ John-Talmage Mathis

John-Talmage Mathis Achievement American Dream Defeat Goals Hard Work Life Purpose

Let us be thankful for the fools,' Mark Twain wrote with typically dark humor in 1897. 'But for them the rest of us could not succeed.' Of all the paradoxes of failure in America, surely this is the darkest. Long ago, we saw through old fables of rags to riches; it is still fun to dream, but we know that we are partaking of a cultural myth. But if we do not quite believe in that kind of success, our faith in the myths of failure is unshaken. We are merrily cynical about whether the average tycoon really tugged on those bootstraps, but we still believe with deadly seriousness that the reasons for failure are usually individual-- in the man. Failure is not the dark side of the American Dream; it is the foundation of it. The American Dream gives each of us the chance to be a born loser.

~ Scott A. Sandage

Scott A. Sandage American Dream Failure Success

In times of war or peace the US will gladly pay a man to fail should his heart be in it, a small shimmering proof of the American dream.

~ Jonathan Culver

Jonathan Culver American Dream Army Failure Soldiers United States Usa War

In the end, one detail is unarguable: There will always be those searching for treasure. Never forget: We are a country founded on legends and myths. We love them, especially legends of treasure. Looking for treasure isn't just part of being an American, it is America.

~ Brad Meltzer

Brad Meltzer America American Culture American Dream American History Being American Conspiracy Conspiracy Theories Conspiracy Theorists Conspiracy Theory Detective Work Dream Big Dreaming Folktales Legendary Legends Mysteries Mystery Myth Seeking Truth Treasure Treasure Hunting

It's an insidious twist of thought that leads one to demand women to give up their reproductive rights to force unwanted pregnancies but then, once birthed from the womb, to deny them access to basic necessities required for even a mediocre life like education, clean air, healthcare, and a fair wage. And these people have the audacity to call their position pro-life.These same people who bemoan the welfare state, yet refuse to require business to honor a fair wage, appear to want to create the very circumstances that they ceaselessly complain about. I dare say that by perpetuating this condition, by feeding the apparatus of poverty, they are satiating their narcissism.With poverty securely entrenched, these lucky few can sit back and smile with smug superiority. Because of course, they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, they worked harder, and they have earned what they have. It's a meritocracy, they say, if only by merit of their parent's color of flesh or social standing.So yes, let's churn out more children who will be unable to claw their way out of poverty, and if they just happen to defy the odds, let's brainwash them into believing this tripe called the American Dream so they will assist us as we throw their less fortunate fortunate siblings into the hungry machine of conservatism. Because we are really only interested in conserving the status quo.

~ Michael Brewer

Michael Brewer Abortionists American Dream Poverty

cross-national studies show that the U.S. poverty rate, which stands persistently above 12 percent, is not only the highest poverty rate of any advanced industrial nation, but is more than twice the average for that group.Pursuing the American Dream, 9, 276

~ Calvin C. Jillson

Calvin C. Jillson American Dream Poverty

You're just another american who is willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick being shoved up your asshole every day... The owners of this country know the truth... it's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it!

~ George Carlin

George Carlin American Dream Ignorance Patriotism Servitude Stupidity

I've always resented the smug statements of politicians, media commentators, corporate executives who talked of how, in America, if you worked hard you would become rich. The meaning of that was if you were poor it was because you hadn't worked hard enough. I knew this was a lie, about my father and millions of others, men and women who worked harder than anyone, harder than financiers and politicians, harder than anybody if you accept that when you work at an unpleasant job that makes it very hard work indeed.

~ Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn American Dream Falsity Of The American Dream Hard Work Indignation Of The Poor Lies Victim Blaming

Harry had worked his way through the American Dream and come to the conclusion that is was composed of a good lunch and a deep red wine that could soar.

~ Colum Mccann

Colum Mccann American Dream Conclusions Food Red Wine

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

~ Thomas B. Edsall

Thomas B. Edsall American Dream Justice

A year earlier my parents had moved us out of the city to a split-level on Long Island, their idea of the American dream, which meant it as now an hour-and-a-half commute via the 7:06 Hicksville to Penn Station every morning. (Dark City Lights)

~ Jonathan Santlofer

Jonathan Santlofer America American Dream Angst Anthologies City Life Home Houses Life Long Island New York New York City Real Estate Short Stories

There is no one story that will replace the American dream, but storieslike this one—and there are thousands—can inform the myth or mythswe 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 anessential part of our humanity. If we attempt to do so—given the fact thatsomething in us needs myth—wewill only create more myths that echothe 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.

~ Carolyn Baker

Carolyn Baker Activism American Dream Sacred

And when I speak, I don't speak as a Democrat. Or a Republican. Nor an American. I speak as a victim of America's so-called democracy. You and I have never seen democracy - all we've seen is hypocrisy. When we open our eyes today and look around America, we see America not through the eyes of someone who has enjoyed the fruits of Americanism. We see America through the eyes of someone who has been the victim of Americanism. We don't see any American dream. We've experienced only the American nightmare.

~ Malcolm X

Malcolm X American Dream Deception Democracy Hypocrisy Liberty Oppression

Dat's what they say of this cauntry back home, Kath: 'America, the land of milk and honey.' Bot they never tell you the milk's gone sour and the honey's stolen.

~ Andre Dubus Iii

Andre Dubus Iii America American Dream Immigration

America is big enough to accommodate all their dreams.

~ Barack Obama

Barack Obama America American Dream Immigration Race

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.

~ Washington Irving

Washington Irving America American Dream Washington Irving Western

I love America for its bourgeois comfort. If I was as heavily in debt as they are, I wouldn't be drinking tea or coffee anywhere. I would be sipping tap water from an old bottle and serving others tea or coffee in a cafe somewhere.

~ Vann Chow

Vann Chow America American Dream Bourgeois Bourgeois Society Coffee Debt Indulgent Tea

If America is to be strong in the future, Americans must see America as home, not divided by race or region. Build American jobs for the future and come together with compassion to solve problems.

~ Phil Mitchell

Phil Mitchell America American Dream Culture Identity Election Future Inspirational Political Quotes

That year, a middle-aged acquaintance asked me what my favorite book was and I said On the Road. He smiled, said, That was my favorite book at sixteen. At the time , I thought he was patronizing me, that it was going to be my favorite book forever and ever, amen. But he was right. As an adult, I'm more of a Gatsby girl-more tragic, more sad, just as interested in what America costs as what it has to offer.

~ Sarah Vowell

Sarah Vowell America American Culture American Dream Gatsby On The Road Sarah Vowell

Healing in America is being able to call it our home, to build a future for our children, to still believe in tough times, to remember our forefathers, and stepping forward together towards a common solution

~ Phil Mitchell

Phil Mitchell America American Dream Election Patriotic
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