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American Life Quotes

Browse 209 quotes about American Life.

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American Life Quotes

“Lincoln is such an iconic figure in American history. He seems to reflect so many elements of American culture that we consider essential, whether it's the self-made man, the frontier hero, the politician who tries to act in a moral way as well as in a political way, Honest Abe. His career raises these questions that are still with us, the power of the federal government vis-à-vis the states, the question of race in American life, can we be a society of equals? There are so many issues central to Lincoln's career that are still part of our society one hundred and fifty years later.”

MenWayTryingYearsWellsMadeStillsSelfStatesSeemsGovernmentPoliticalCultureRaceMoralCareersIssuesHonestFiguresHeroPoliticianEssentialsElementsHundredRaisesFiftyOur SocietyAmerican HistoryFederal GovernmentFrontiersAmerican CultureIconicAmerican LifeSelf MadeAbeSelf Made Man
Author:Eric Foner
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“My evaluation of President George W. Bush is nothing personal. He's a lovely person. Sadly, I believe he will be remembered for taking us into war unnecessarily at the cost of thousands of American lives, injuries to tens of thousands of our troops, and trillions of dollars to our economy - enormous costs to our reputation, and undermining the capability of our military to protect us. That, I think, will be the overwhelming issue for which his presidency will be remembered: extensive damage to our country.”

ThinkingBelievePersonsWarCountryI BelievePresidentEconomyIssuesMilitaryCostProtectDollarsLovelyEnormousReputationOur CountryRememberedDamageInjuryOverwhelmingCapabilityTroopsPresidencyAmerican LifeEvaluationOur TroopsUnderminingPresident George W BushLovely Person
Author:Nancy Pelosi
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“I think there are a lot of people who are involved in the Tea Party who have very real and sincere concerns about spending that's out of control or generally philosophically believe that the government should be less involved in certain aspects of American life rather than more involved. And they have every right and obligation as citizens to be involved and engaged in this process.”

PeopleThinkingShouldBelieveRealGovernmentCertainProcessPartyCitizensInvolvedConcernAspectSpendingObligationTeaEngagedSincereTea PartyAmerican Life
Author:Barack Obama
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“Institutional Christianity has had clear secular benefits to American life for hundreds of years. It's played both a prophetic role in terms of generating moral critiques of American excesses, and so on, and also a communal role, in terms of building community as the country moved westward to the role my own Catholic Church played in assimilating generations of immigrants.”

YearsCountryTermCommunityChurchMy OwnMoralChristianityRolesClearGenerationsBuildingBenefitsCatholicMovedImmigrantsExcessSecularCatholic ChurchCritiqueAmerican LifePropheticBuilding Community
Author:Ross Douthat
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“Justified or not, the Supreme Court has a kind of sacred status in American life. For whatever reason, Presidents can safely run against Congress, and vice versa, but I think there is an inherent popular aversion to assaults on the court itself. Perhaps it has to do with an instinctive belief that life needs umpires.”

ThinkingNeedsKindReasonRunningBeliefPresidentSacredCourtCongressVicesSupremeInherentSupreme CourtAssaultJustifiedUmpiresVice VersaAversionAmerican Life
Author:Jon Meacham
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“'We Were the Mulvaneys' is perhaps the novel closest to my heart. I think of it as a valentine to a passing way of American life, and to my own particular child - and girlhood in upstate New York. Everyone in the novel is enormously close to me, including Marianne's cat, Muffin, who was in fact my own cat.”

ThinkingWayHeartChildrenFactsMy OwnNovelNew YorkParticularMy HeartCatIncludingPassingPassingsClosestValentineAmerican LifeGirlhoodMuffinsUpstate New York
Author:Joyce Carol Oates
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“A serious problem in America is the gap between academe and the mass media, which is our culture. Professors of humanities, with all their leftist fantasies, have little direct knowledge of American life and no impact whatever on public policy.”

LittlesProblemAmericaHumanityCultureFantasyMediaPolicySeriousMassDirectImpactGapsProfessorsAmerican LifePublic PolicyLeftistsMass MediaArts And Humanities
Book:Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays
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“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”

LifeEarthTogetherSpiritualityNatureEnvironmentPiecesLonelinessAll ThingsLonelyIndiaEnvironmentalBoundsIndianNativeSustainabilityHumankindNative AmericanThreadEcologyEldersOur EnvironmentWovenMother EarthAmerican IndianEarth DayAmerican LifeSeattleInterconnectednessNature And EnvironmentNative American WisdomNative AmericaSave Mother EarthNative American IndianNative American EarthGreen EarthIndian WisdomNative WisdomWorld EnvironmentBeautiful EarthGreen LivingSave The EnvironmentNative American Indian InspirationalEco FriendlyNative American SpiritualWeb Of LifeWorld Earth DayEnvironmental PollutionInspirational EarthInspirational EnvironmentalSpiritual IndianNative American ProverbsSaving The EarthEarth LifeEnvironmental SustainabilityEarth FriendlyBest AmericanThreads Of Life
Author:Chief Seattle
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“Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.”

InspirationalHeartFearAppreciationIndianNativeNative AmericanLive Your LifeFear Of DeathRespecting OthersValorAmerican IndianAmerican LifeNative American WisdomGoing HomeGreat SpiritNative AmericaNative American IndianGreat Native AmericanNative American EarthIndian WisdomNative WisdomAmerican SpiritThank You AppreciationNative American Indian InspirationalNative American SpiritualNative American DreamLiving In FearFear Of DyingDeath PoemsSpiritual IndianIndian Tribes
Author:Tecumseh
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“In full accordance with the law - and in order to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States and to save American lives - the United States government conducts targeted strikes against specific al-Qa'ida terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft, often referred to publicly as drones.”

SometimesStatesGovernmentLawOrderUnitedUnited StatesStrikesTerroristAlsAmerican LifeState GovernmentAircraftDronesTerrorist AttacksUnited States Government
Author:John O. Brennan
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“I'm drawn to write about upstate New York in the way in which a dreamer might have recurring dreams. My childhood and girlhood were spent in upstate New York, in the country north of Buffalo and West of Rochester. So this part of New York state is very familiar to me and, with its economic difficulties, has become emblematic of much of American life.”

WayWritingCountryStatesDreamMightEconomicChildhoodNew YorkDifficultyWestFamiliarDreamerAmerican LifeBuffaloRecurringGirlhoodRochesterNew York StateUpstate New YorkRecurring Dreams
Author:Joyce Carol Oates
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“sometimes i wish i'd been an englishman; american life is so damned dumb and stupid and healthy”

SometimesLife IsWishStupidHealthyDumbEnglishmenAmerican Life
Book:The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works
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“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset.”

LifeLittlesRunningDeathNightFunNatureChangeLosesDyingInspirational LifeShadowBreathsWinterIndianGrassNativeSunsetFlashNative AmericanIndigenousMother EarthAmerican IndianAmerican LifeGreat AmericanNative American WisdomBuffaloGreat SpiritNative AmericaFireflyNative American IndianWhat Is LifeGreat Native AmericanIndian WisdomNative WisdomAmerican SpiritNative American Indian InspirationalNative American SpiritualWintertimeBeautiful SunsetCherokeeWinter TimeShadow Of DeathSpiritual IndianNative American ProverbsWhite CloudsIndian TribesCherokee Indian
Author:Crowfoot
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“It is a commonplace of American life that immigrants have made our country great and continue to make a very important contribution to the fabric of American life. But...under the pressures we face today, we can't afford to lose control of our borders, or to take on new financial burdens, at a time when we are not adequately providing for the jobs, the health care, and the education of our own people. Therefore, immigration must be a priority for this administration.”

PeopleMadeImportantCountryCareTodayJobsFacesLosesPressureFinancialBurdenPrioritiesImmigrationOur CountryAdministrationHealth CareBordersContributionImmigrantsProvidingFabricCommonplaceAmerican LifeImportant ContributionsFinancial Burden
Author:William J. Clinton
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“Hippy is an establishment label for a profound, invisible, underground, evolutionary process. For every visible hippy, barefoot, beflowered, beaded, there are a thousand invisible members of the turned-on underground. Persons whose lives are tuned in to their inner vision, who are dropping out of the TV comedy of American Life.”

PersonsProcessVisionComedyTvsThousandMembersProfoundInvisibleLabelsVisibleEstablishmentDroppingHippieAmerican LifeBarefootDropping OutHippi
Book:The Politics of Ecstasy
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“The quality of American life is an insult to the possibilities of human growth... the pollution of American space, with gadgetry and cars and TV and box architecture, brutalizes the senses, making gray neurotics of most of us, and perverse spiritual athletes and strident self-transcenders of the best of us.”

LifeHumansSelfAmericaSpiritualLife IsGrowthSpaceQualityCarPossibilityTvsEnvironmentalAthleteBoxesArchitectureSensesInsultGrayPollutionAmerican Life
Author:Susan Sontag
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“I had been conscious a feeling of depression and so I voiced to [Secretary Of War Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at this very moment, seeking a way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face.'”

WorldWayShouldFirstsWarCountryMomentsUseFacesBeliefLossOpinionWeaponsConsciousBasesSeekingGravesSurrenderOur CountryEmploymentBombsJapanDefeatedUnnecessaryMinimumShockingDroppingBombingAmerican LifeAtomic BombHiroshimaMisgivingsHiroshima And NagasakiAtomic WarDropping Bombs
Author:Dwight D. Eisenhower
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“Maketa Groves has a strong, bright lyric gift. Her poems come out of music and are full of music. They bring us the sounds of the streets and the sounds of nature, and make us see once again that they are parts of the same song. She celebrates American lives as they are lived today: the mother scrubbing her kitchen floor at midnight, the drag-queens in the Tenderloin, the homeless woman knitting in the courtyard. This is poetry that relentlessly shows us the beauty in the world, with all its struggles and complexity, and demands that we go out to meet it with open hearts.”

WorldHeartShowsTodayMotherSongStrongSoundStruggleStreetsDemandCelebrateQueensKitchenComplexityDragHomelessMidnightAmerican LifeOpen HeartKnittingGroveDrag Queen
Author:Diane di Prima
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“Here, the churches seemed to shrink away into eroding corners. They seem to have ceased to be essential parts of American life. They no longer give life. It is the huge buildings of commerce and trade which now align the people to attention. These in their massive manner of steel and stone say, Come unto me all ye who labor, and we will give you work.”

PeopleGivingSeemsChurchWorkAttentionBuildingHugeEssentialsLaborStonesTradeCornersMassiveCommerceSteelShrinksAmerican Life
Book:Autobiographies III: Rose and Crown and Sunset and Evening Star
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