American Family Quotes

The problem with the American health-care system that it is not working for the American family. ~ John F. Kerry

I now have two different audiences. There's the one that has been watching my action films for 20 years, and the American family audience. American jokes, less fighting. ~ Jackie Chan

The American family is failing in its job of turning out stable human beings ... It is failing because Americans do not dare to cultivate in themselves those characteristics which would make family life creative and rewarding. To do so, would ruin them financially. ~ Margaret Halsey

Most of our life is miscommunication, and when you add a language barrier to it, it just becomes total mayhem and confusion. It just adds to it with all of the cultural differences. It could be an American family meeting another American family and you could still have a total clash. With family, it's like visiting another planet. ~ Julie Delpy

You want to see how devoted we are to comfort? Walk into the average American home and hide the remote control, and watch what happens. Life without the remote control is an unbearable burden for the average American family. Then someone invented a TV with a beeper so that when you clap your hands, the remote control will beep until you find it. ~ John Ortberg Jr.

...when President Clinton, on the anniversary of his election, spoke in the church in Tennessee where Martin Luther King, Jr., had delivered his last sermon. Inspired by the place and the occasion, he made one of the most eloquent speeches of his presidency. What would King have said, he asked, had he lived to see this day?

"He would say, I did not live and die to see the American family destroyed. I did not live and die to see thirteen-year-old boys get automatic weapons and gun down nine-year-olds just for the kick of it. I did not live and die to see young people destroy their lives with drugs and then build fortunes destroying the lives of others. This is not what I came here to do.

I fought for freedom, he would say, but not for the freedom of people to kill each other with reckless abandon; not for the freedom of children to have children and the fathers of the children walk away from them and abandon them as if they don't amount to anything. I fought for people to have the right to work, but not have whole communities and people abandoned. This is not what I lived and died for."

After describing what his administration was doing to curb drugs and violence, the President concluded that the government alone could not do the job. The problem was caused by "the breakdown of the family, the community and the disappearance of jobs," and unless we "reach deep inside to the values, the spirit, the soul and the truth of human nature, none of the ~ Gertrude Himmelfarb

American family life has never been particularly idyllic. In the nineteenth century, nearly a quarter of all children experienced the death of one of their parents ... Not until the sixties did the chief cause of separation of parents shift from death to divorce. ~ Richard Louv

You know this old style of American family series? Well, I sit there and cry. ~ Graham Kennedy

I was given the opportunity to write the kind of book that I wanted to write, rather than one that catalogues where I sang and what I sang and what I wore. I wanted to write a book about an American family, the family that has produced me. The longer I live, the more I realise the incredible support and love we were given as children. ~ Jessye Norman

Three cheers for Mr. and Mrs. Bower and their really satisfactory American family of twelve children! ~ Edmund Morris

Everything has changed in recent decades - the economy, technology, cultural attitudes, the demographics of the workforce, the role of women in society and the structure of the American family. It's about time our laws caught up. We watch 'Modern Family' on television, but we're still living by 'Leave It To Beaver' rules. ~ Thomas Perez

At a time when the American family is threatened as never before, redefining it away from the union of one man and one woman only promises to weaken it as a child-rearing, values-conveying institution. ~ Marco Rubio

We are taken through the pursuit of the American dream, the establishment of the American family, and a smattering of suspense and intrigue. ~ Nikita Allgire

When I finally gave up any hope of doing anything representative of the American family, I actually seemed to have tapped into other people's weirdness in that way. ~ Jonathan Franzen

My mother was addicted to being rich, to servants and unlimited charge accounts, to giving lavish dinner parties, to taking frequent first-class trips to Europe. So one might say she was tormented by withdrawal symptoms all through the Great Depression. She was acculturated! Acculturated persons are those who find that they are no longer treated as the sort of people they thought they were, because the outside world has changed. An economic misfortune or a new technology, or being conquered by another country or political faction, can do that to people quicker than you can say "Jack Robinson." As Trout wrote in his "An American Family Marooned on the Planet Pluto": "Nothing wrecks any kind of love more effectively than the discovery that your previously acceptable behavior has become ridiculous." He said in conversation at the 2001 clambake: "If I hadn't learned how to live without a culture and a society, acculturation would have broken my heart a thousand times." *** ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Yes, it is long past time we get serious about tackling the nation's ever-growing deficits. But the average American family drawn into serious debt cannot just threaten to stiff its creditors. It must cut its spending in the future, but also take responsibility for the debt incurred in the past. ~ Peter Welch

I miss friends and family. If it weren't for visits from old friends and other African Americans I meet who come to Cuba, I'd probably be in some kind of time warp. ~ Assata Shakur

The first time I learned I could sell myself was when I convinced a wealthy American family to give me a job as a nanny. Childcare. Totally unqualified. But I learned to be ready for anything. And that I can adapt. That I can become the best diaper changer. ~ Scott Raab

Protecting the institution of marriage safeguards, I believe, the American family. ~ John Boehner

For the naysayers that claimed 'American Family' revealed us to be vacant, unloving, uncaring morons of the materialistic '70s, this image will be proven wrong when Mom and Dad remarry ... Make no mistake. This is not to emphasize the sadness of my demise but rather emphasize the love of my family and friends. ~ Lance Loud

I'm not a chef. I haven't created any new technique in the kitchen. I'm not a rocket scientist. I think I'm good at writing accessible, fun, and affordable meals for the average American family. That's what I think I'm good at. ~ Rachael Ray

Let us remember we are all part of one American family. We are united in common values, and that includes belief in equality under the law, basic respect for public order, and the right of peaceful protest. ~ Barack Obama

I was once, I am, and I will always be my children's father. As to those individuals who have tried so desperately to destroy the fact, I offer forgiveness and seek
reconciliation. As to the institutions that have supported the effort to destroy the fact, I pray that: Lady Justice will seek the truth rather than excuse it; and that she will extol the American family rather than destroy it. ~ H. Kirk Rainer

The death tax punishes the American dream - making it virtually impossible for the average American family to build wealth across generations. ~ Kit Bond

The traditional American family has always been the foundation for success in America. ~ Bill O'Reilly

That's one of the biggest losses, I think, to African American families, is that people, once they left, they turned away from the South. They didn't look back, and they often didn't tell their children about it. They didn't want to talk about it. It was too painful, what they'd gone through and the caste system of the South, which was Jim Crow. ~ Isabel Wilkerson

In this deeply nuanced portrait of an American family, Bret Anthony Johnston fearlessly explores the truth behind a mythic happy ending. In Remember Me Like This, Johnston presents an incisive dismantling of an all-too-comforting fallacy: that in being found we are no longer lost. ~ Alice Sebold

I know an American family that spent several years living in England. They had one son, who was an average student: not great, but not terrible. When the family returned home to the United States, the parents enrolled him in the local public school. Mom was startled by the continual drumbeat from teachers and other parents: "Maybe your son has ADHD. Have you considered trying a medication?" She told me, "It was weird, like everybody was in on this conspiracy to medicate my son. In England, none of the kids is on medication. Or if they are, it's a secret. But I really don't think many are. Here it seems like almost all the kids are on medication. Especially the boys. ~ Leonard Sax

The psychological attitudes which are indispensable in the American market place are disastrous to family life. Family life ... requires yieldingness, generosity, sympathy, altruism, tenderness-all the qualities, in fact, which lead straight to bankruptcy ... the American family is tragically out of gear with the profit structure which has mushroomed up around it. ~ Margaret Halsey

We're going to keep trying to strengthen the American family. To make them more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons. ~ George H. W. Bush

The car was full of unhappy people heading west. It was the Great American Family Road Trip, all right. Whaaa-hoo! ~ Kim Harrison

When I was a kid I got so much help from the Church. When I was a kid, our family was so poor they couldn't afford me to go to school, so there was an American family that send the money to the church to support my school fees. ~ John Woo

To one American family out of four, the idea of capitalism as a benign system of comfort , dignity , and personal advance is only a myth , or worse, a bitter mockery. ~ Robert Heilbroner

The American family is not simply changing; it is getting weaker ... Family decline drives some of our most urgent social problems ... The heart of the family problem lies in the steady breakup of the two-parent home. ~ David Popenoe

One result of An American Family was that I became a gay role model. ~ Lance Loud

We're going to have a tax cut. Today's American family is overtaxed at all levels. ~ Dick Armey

The New York Times, with what was threatening to become a customary lack of prescience, forecast that it would never be a serious competitor for radio because "people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen; the average American family hasn't time for it."34 ~ Bill Bryson

We smoked the way other American families would have wine with dinner. For us, it was our sacrament. It was something that made a great life sweeter in every possible way, ~ Ann Druyan

YEARS AGO I WORKED ON A GOVERNMENT TASK force studying fatherhood and healthy families. As we met in DC, I learned one of the main causes of the breakdown of the American family was the Industrial Revolution. When men left their homes and farms to work on assembly lines, they disconnected their sense of worth from the well-being of their wives and children and began to associate it with efficiency and productivity in manufacturing. While the Industrial Revolution served the world in terrific ways, it was also a mild tragedy in our social evolution. Raising healthy children became a woman's job. Food was no longer grown in the backyard, it was bought at a store with money earned from the necessary separation of the father. Within a few generations, then, intimacy in family relationships began to be monopolized by females. ~ Donald Miller

Why, on my mother's birthday, am I thinking about 'Father Knows Best?' At our house, mother knew best at least as often as father did, but then the title of the old sitcom, a homogenized portrait of American family life, was meant to be slightly sardonic. ~ Tom Shales

Las Vegas is a major family destination. Nevada casinos have become American family values now. It's considered just fine to go into one of these windowless scary gambling-malls, drink yourself silly, lose your ass at roulette, and then go ogle showgirls with breast implants. Republicans do this now. Working-class folks do it in polyester stretch pants. It's normal. ~ Bruce Sterling

These dreams
These empty dreams
from the make-believe bedrooms
their parents left them
are the after-effects
of television programs
about the ideal
white american family
with black maids
and latino janitors
who are well train
to make everyone
and their bill collectors
laugh at them
and the people they represent ~ Pedro Pietri

In 1950, American families sent 1 of 50 of their hard earned dollars to Washington: Today it is 1 in 4. ~ John Ensign

American families only spend 17 minutes a day on average having time together. ~ Daniel L. Doctoroff

What the American family does not want is to pay an increasing fraction of their budget, their precious dollars, for energy costs. ~ Steven Chu

In comparative terms, there's no poverty in America by a long shot. Heritage Foundation political scientist Robert Rector has worked up figures showing that when the official U.S. measure of poverty was developed in 1963, a poor American family had an income twenty-nine times greater than the average per capita income in the rest of the world. An individual American could make more money than 93 percent of the other people on the planet and still be considered poor. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

In my life, I have been told that as a gay man I am a threat to the American family. I have been told that to accept me as an equal is an insult to God. I have been told that I am no better than a pedophile. I have been told that I cannot serve in the military because my presence will undermine unit cohesion. I have had bottles thrown at me when I gathered with others to protest for marriage equality. I have been told that I am sick, that I am damaged, and that I am damage and sickness incarnate.

Let the record show that what finally made me snap is the suggestion that I was supposed to have chemistry with Tori Spelling. ~ Dave Holmes

The very same British and American families who had combined to wreck the Indian textile industry in the promotion of the opium trade [ ... ] combined to make the trade, a valuable source of revenue. In 1864 they joined forces to create causes for war and to promote the terrible War Between the States, also known as the American Civil War. ~ John Coleman

At the very same time that we witnessed the explosion of white celebrity moms, and the outpouring of advice to a surveillance of middle-class mothers, the welfare mother, trapped in a "cycle of dependency," became ubiquitous in our media landscape, and she came to represent everything wrong with America. She appeared not in the glossy pages of the women's magazines but rather as the subject of news stories about the "crisis" in the American family and the newly declared "war" on welfare mothers. Whatever ailed America--drugs, crime, loss of productivity--was supposedly her fault. She was portrayed as thumbing her nose at intensive mothering. Even worse, she was depicted as bringing her kids into the realm of market values, as putting a price on their heads, by allegedly calculating how much each additional child was worth and then getting pregnant to cash in on them. For middle-class white women in the media, by contrast, their kids were priceless, these media depictions reinforced the divisions between "us" (minivan moms) and "them" (welfare mothers, working-class mothers, teenage mothers), and did so especially along the lines of race. For example, one of the most common sentences used to characterize the welfare mother was, "Tanya, who has_____ children by ______ different men" (you fill in the blanks). Like zoo animals, their lives were reduced to the numbers of successful impregnations by multiple partners. So it's interesting to note that someone like Christie Brinkley, ~ Susan J. Douglas

I don't think American family sitcoms are mean. I guess I really love 'Arrested Development.' I guess they are quite mean in that, but that is also a very silly, surreal, absurd show as well, and it has got a heart as well. ~ Simon Bird

Black-ish is really a show about an American family and these are some of the topics that come up - for all of us, in different ways - and we get to see how this family is walking through it. ~ Tracee Ellis Ross

If we don't change, millions of American families are just one medical emergency, or one layoff, away from financial disaster and bankruptcy. ~ Jim Cooper

Perhaps no American family-with the possible exception of the Adams family-has had a more vivid and powerful impact on the life of their times. But the Kennedy tale-the spiral compound of glory, achievement, degradation and almost mythical tragedy-exerts a fascination upon us that goes beyond their public achievements. ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

Barack insisted that we pay for everything ourselves, using what we'd saved from his book royalties. As long as I've known him, he's been this way: extra-vigilant when it comes to matters of money and ethics, holding himself to a higher standard than even what's dictated by law. There's an age-old maxim in the black community: You've got to be twice as good to get half as far. As the first African American family in the White House, we were being viewed as representatives of our race. Any error or lapse in judgment, we knew, would be magnified, read as something more than it was. ~ Michelle Obama

There's just so much love that goes into home cooking, and I think it will really help the American family overall. I'm hoping to maybe get a cookbook out one day because I've got some great family recipes. ~ Ming-Na Wen

Family farmers are small farmers who love the land. They're still not getting enough money for their product and are rapidly losing their battle to stay in business. By helping the American family farmer, we will in turn help ourselves out of the economic hole that we find ourselves in today. It doesn't really matter how we got here; the point is, we have to dig our way out. ~ Willie Nelson

In the 5 years, well over 60,000 American families have been broken apart by the absence of insurance because the only way for parents to get treatment for their children is to turn the custody of those children over to the State. ~ Patrick J. Kennedy

Like many another romance, the romance of the family turns sour when the money runs out. If we really cared about families, we would not let 'born again' patriarchs send up moral abstractions as a smokescreen for the scandal of American family economics. ~ Letty Cottin Pogrebin

As a society, we've evolved, and we've recognized that the American family structure has undergone enormous changes. Divorce is all around us, and who among us doesn't know someone who is divorced or has been impacted by divorce. It's not as scandalous as it was. ~ Laura Wasser

We believe that our truly urgent need is to make our nation secure, our economy strong and our dollar sound. For every American this matter of the sound dollar is crucial. Without a sound dollar, every American family would face a renewal of inflation, an ever-increasing cost of living, the withering away of savings and life insurance policies. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

When we talk about the decline of the American family, I think we have to go back to the Industrial Revolution. ~ Donald Miller

Summertime, oh, summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade-proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweetfern and the juniper forever and ever ... the cottages with their innocent and tranquil design, their tiny docks with the flagpole and the American flag floating against the white clouds in the blue sky, the little paths over the roots of the trees leading from camp to camp. This was the American family at play, escaping the city heat. ~ E.B. White

To my way of thinking, the American family started to decline when parents began to communicate with their children. ~ Erma Bombeck

The American family shattered for the simple reason that it was American, not global. ~ John F. MacArthur Jr.

We hear a lot in this country about family, and 'American Family' just shows us a portrait we haven't seen as much of yet. 'American Family' lets us know that being American isn't about the color of your hair or eyes or skin: it's really a state of mind. ~ Esai Morales

I've always felt, as a writer, that radicals are fascinating because they're relations, they have a place in the American family. They're the relatives everyone wishes would go away. They're the embarrassments to decorum and good taste. ~ E.L. Doctorow

It is long past time to eliminate bigotry in the workplace and to ensure equal opportunity for all Americans. It is time to make clear that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans are first class citizens. They are full and welcome members of our American family and they deserve the same civil rights protections as all other Americans. It is time for us to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Such discrimination is wrong and should not be tolerated. ~ Tom Harkin

To be sure, changes in American family structure have been fairly continuous since the first European settlements, but today thesechanges seem to be occurring so rapidly that the shift is no longer a simple extension of long-term trends. We have passed a genuine watershed: this is the first time in our history that the typical school-age child has a mother who works outside the home. ~ Kenneth Keniston

Brittany Ellis, I'm goin' to prove to you I'm the guy you believed in ten months ago, and I'm gonna be the successful man you dreamed I could be. My plan is to ask you to marry me four years from now, the day we graduate.'And I guarantee you a lifetime of fun, probably one with no lack of fightin', for you are one passionate mamacita ... but I definitely look forward to some great make-up sessions. Maybe one day we can even go back to Fairfield and help make it the place my dad always hoped it would be. You, me, and Shelley. And any other Fuentes or Ellis family member who wants to be a part of our lives. We'll be one big, crazy Mexican-American family. What do you think? Mujer, you own my soul. ~ Simone Elkeles

I don't think there is such a definition of a perfect family, but I do think that our marriages are in crisis. Our families are in crisis. And I think the African-American family is at one of the worst stages it's been at in a very long time in this country. Fatherlessness is rampant. ~ Leah Ward Sears

'Pretty Deadly' is the story of these immortal and mortal characters, and the mortals' story follows Sarah's family, a black family, through the ages. I never made the choice of, 'Oh, this is gonna be the story of an African American family!' ~ Kelly Sue DeConnick

So it seems that because of every syndrome and disorder we've invented in the past twenty years, the Los Angeles Times reported that 63% of American families are now considered dysfunctional. My God! That means we're the majority. We're normal! It's the people who have the mommy, the daddy, the brother, the sister, the little white picket fence - those people are the freaks, man! ~ Christopher Titus

When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came. ~ Barry Levinson

They've lived here now for more than half of their lives, and they raised a family here and now have grandchildren here ... It has become their home, but at the same time, for my parents, I don't think either of them will ever consciously think, 'I am an American.' ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

Scripture says: "Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted." I call on every American family and the family of America to observe a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance, honoring the memory of the thousands of victims of these brutal attacks and comforting those who lost loved ones. We will persevere through this national tragedy and personal loss. In time, we will find healing and recovery; and, in the face of all this evil, we remain strong and united, "one Nation under God." ~ George W. Bush

I was possessed with a wonderful example of my Italian American family. They would come over and join us every Sunday, all my aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces, and I would sing for them. ~ Tony Bennett

If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription, who has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer - even if it's not my grandparent. If there's an Arab-American or Mexican-American family being rounded up by John Ashcroft without benefit of an attorney or due process, I know that that threatens my civil liberties. And I don't have to be a woman to be concerned that the Supreme Court is trying to take away a woman's right, because I know that my rights are next. It is that fundamental belief - I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper - that makes this country work. ~ Barack Obama

The Monday before we left on our trip, I wrote a note to Bonnie Clarke, Patrick's teacher, telling her Patrick would be missing school on Friday, November 8. I said only that we would be visiting friends in Washington. While Patrick waited in the car-pool line, Mrs. Clarke had asked him whom he was going to see, expecting him to name cousins or other relatives. He had replied, "My mom and I are going to visit Diana." When I arrived, Mrs. Clarke said, "This is so cute. You won't believe what Patrick just told me. He said you two were going to see Diana. It couldn't possibly be true!" Patrick and I both thought Mrs. Clarke was an exceptional teacher, but I was a little miffed that she would think he was fibbing. While I normally never talked about Diana, I couldn't let it pass. I explained, "Patrick never lies. We are, in fact, going to visit Diana. She was his nanny while we lived in London." Mrs. Clarke apologized quickly and exclaimed, "Oh! So you're that American family. I had no idea. ~ Mary Robertson

We have overcome economic devastation, defeated mighty oppressors, and lifted up generation after generation of Americans. We can - and we will - do it again. For that is our birthright as members of the American family - white, black, Hispanic, Asian, immigrant, or descendant of the Founding Fathers themselves. ~ Brian Sandoval

When an American family becomes separated from its toothbrushes and combs and pajamas for a few hours it considers that it has had quite an adventure. ~ E.B. White

Verbal abuse is the use of language to shame, scare or hurt another. Dysfunctional parents routinely use name-calling, sarcasm, and destructive criticism to overpower and control their children. Verbal abuse is as commonplace in the American family as homework and table manners. It is modeled as socially acceptable in almost every sitcom on television. ~ Pete Walker

Mayor Walmsley is using the typical Jim Crow manipulation tactics to deflect the blame and guilt. He's a classic racist politician with an ulterior motive," says Ora. ~ Shaune Bordere

That's one of the problems with doing anything for a long time. Staying home, for instance. The longer you stay, the more you believe your identity is wrapped up in the people and things around you. You become trapped. It seems as if you fear change because you can't let go of this illusion of yourself as being what? The good granddaughter? The girlfriend who can't choose between her boyfriend and her family? Seems as if your fear of change is really just the same fear of death you mention in your first class. ~ Suzanne Morrison

When I did that '3 Days of Normal' one, we had no budget, and we were all staying in a house in New Hampshire. There's no trailers, and it's just a family environment. There's not much of a crew; you just do what you need to do. ~ Mircea Monroe

Wonderful. They had the rarest, most bewildering power in the world, and how did her family choose to use this incredible gift? To line their pockets with cash and go sightseeing. ~ Alexandra Bracken

The Confederate flag was the flag of the American South during the civil war. It was the flag of people who were fighting against their own government in an attempt to retain slavery. It was the flag of people who thought slavery was no problem, who thought slavery was a good thing. ~ John Niven

I am the king. You're the knight sitting at my round table. That's the nature of our relationship when it comes to war or other conflict resolution in this family. ~ Sarah Black

My temperament is not the adventuresome sort that enjoys starting new projects every six months. I love ensemble, nine-to-five stability. There's a family dynamic in making a television show that you don't get on a movie, where you're a hired gun for a few months. ~ Ted Danson

A child's love naturally expands to encompass any person in his family that loves him. ~ S.R. Skelton

This administration in Washington that's in power now clearly believes that government is not only the answer to every need, but it's the most qualified to make the most central decisions for every American in every area. ~ Rick Perry

I don't come from a musical family and didn't go to Julliard or anything, but I had this kind of vision of stuff that was so powerful that I just needed to find it. I have no regrets. ~ Andy Kim

Look at the Native American culture. They revere the elders. ~ Thomas Haden Church

Are you a politician or does lying just run in your family? ~ Fannie Flagg

he was ever alone now, set apart from those around him, separated by a divide he could see across but never cover. To be without family was a strange, unseeable prison, the bars of loneliness and rootlessness enclosing ever more tightly as years and experience accumulated, isolating a male such that he touched naught and naught touched him. Darius ~ J.R. Ward

When I was three years old I was taken with my family to a little town in Western Minnesota, where I lived a more or less vapid and ordinary life until I was ten. ~ Mary MacLane

Verily, I say unto you, that the wisdom of man, in his fallen state, knoweth not the purposes and the privileges of my hold priesthood, but ye shall know when ye receive a fullness by reason of the anointing: For it is my will, that in time, ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites, that their posterity may become white, delightsome and just, for even now their females are more virtuous then the gentiles. ~ Joseph Smith Jr.

I tell my kids and my grandkids, 'Never forget where you came from. Never forget your roots.' My grandkids, they didn't go through the hard times as much as other ones in our family did. One thing is to just never forget where you came from and you never forget that nothing is more important than your relationship with Jesus Christ. ~ Kay Robertson

The whole game in the fifties and early sixties was for no one to know who you really were. We children were witness to the total pretense of how our parents wanted the world to see them. We helped them maintain this image, because if anyone outside the family could see who they really were deep down, the whole system, the ship of your family, might sink. We held our breath to give the ship buoyancy. We were little air tanks. ~ Anne Lamott

When someone obtains peace and serenity, this shines a bright spotlight on others' own unhappiness making their discomfort even more apparent. ~ David W. Earle

Looking back now, success seems foreordained. It wasn't. No colonists in the history of the world had defeated their mother country on the battlefield to win their independence. Few republics had managed--or even attempted--to govern an area bigger than a city-state. Somehow, in defiance to all precedent, Washington, Hamilton, and the other founders pulled off both.
Their deliriously unlikely success--first as soldiers, then as statesmen--tends to obscure the true lessons of the American Revolution. The past places no absolute limit on the future. Even the unlikeliest changes can occur. But change requires hope--in the case of both those unlikely victories, the hope that the American people could defy all expectation to overcome their differences and set each other free.
in the summer of 1788, Alexander Hamilton carried this message to Poughkeepsie, where he pleaded with New York's leaders to trust in the possibilities of the union, and vote to ratify the new federal Constitution. Yes, he conceded, the 13 newborn states included many different kinds of people. But this did not mean that the government was bound to fail. It took an immigrant to fully understand the new nation, and to declare a fundamental hope of the American experiment: Under wise government, these diverse men and women "will be constantly assimilating, till they embrace each other, and assume the same complexion. ~ Jeremy McCarter