Living The American Dream Quotes

Not all Americans are living the American dream by a long shot. Many can't even imagine it. There are impoverished Americans, the poor and the homeless, the hungry and the hopeless, many unable to read and write. There are Americans gone astray, the kids dragged down by drugs, the shattered families, the teenage mothers struggling to cope. Then there are Americans uneasy, troubled and bewildered by the dizzying pace of change. ~ George H. W. Bush

Everybody has dreams. You are living the American dream, what's wrong with pushing to secure it for everyone? ~ Bob Ross

We are really living the American dream, to be a successful brand in the States and in Europe and to steep ourselves in our heritage. But we do it with a sense of humor. We don't take ourselves too seriously in fashion. ~ Tommy Hilfiger

So the America I came to know growing up was filled with all the excitement and possibilities found in living the American dream. ~ Mia Love

I've been extremely fortunate in my life. So I actually believe that I'm the living embodiment of living the American dream. ~ Dan Rosensweig

I am not living the American Dream; I am living the American fantasy. ~ Frank McCourt

The American dream is, in part, responsible for a great deal of crime and violence because people feel that the country owes them not only a living but a good living. ~ David Abrahamsen

And I can't even go to the grocery store without some ones that's clean and a shirt with a team/It seems we living the American dream but people highest up got the lowest self esteem/The prettiest people do the ugliest things for the road to riches and diamond rings. ~ Kanye West

The prettiest people do the ugliest things. ~ Kanye West

In this America, too, the Christian teaching that every human soul is unique and precious has been stressed, by the prophets of self-fulfillment and gurus of self-love, at the expense of the equally important teaching that every human soul is fatally corrupted by original sin. Absent the latter emphasis, religion becomes a license for egotism and selfishness, easily employed to justify what used to be considered deadly sins. The result is a society where pride becomes 'healthy self-esteem', vanity becomes 'self-improvement', adultery becomes 'following your heart', greed and gluttony become 'living the American dream'. ~ Ross Douthat

We must stop talking about the American dream and start listening to the dreams of Americans. ~ Max Beerbohm

That's why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it. ~ George Carlin

Let's see what's going on over in Iraq. A Burger King has opened up and prostitutes are back on the street of Baghdad after 20 years. Fast food and hookers - they are truly living the American Dream. ~ David Letterman

We are living the American Dream, which is, of course, to benefit from someone else's misfortune. ~ John Green

We are literally Two Americas, remarkably out of touch with each other - the fortunate living the American Dream but lacking any practical comprehension of how the other half are suffering, month in and month out, unaware of the enervating toll of economic despair on the unfortunate half, many of whom just two or three years before had counted themselves among the fortunate. ~ Hedrick Smith

"Having it all" is the phrase of a culture that, as Adam Phillips implies in 'Missing Out', is tyranized by the idea of its own potential. A few generations ago, most people didn't wake up in the morning and fret about whether or not they were living their lives to the fullest. Freedom has always been built into the American experiment, of course, but the freedom to take off and go rock-climbing for the afternoon, or to study engineering, or even to sneak in ten minutes for ourselves in the morning to read the paper- these kinds of freedoms were not, until very recently, built into our private universes of anticipation. It's important to remember that. ~ Jennifer Senior

The American Dream means giving it your all, trying your hardest, accomplishing something. And then I'd add to that, giving something back. No definition of a successful life can do anything but include serving others. ~ George H. W. Bush

I like it too," Angelo said. "I love this country. Much you and anybody, and you know it."

"I know it," Prew said.

"But I still hate this country. You love the Army. But I dont love the Army. This country's Army is why I hate this country. What did this country ever do for me? Gimme a right to vote for men I cant elect? You can have it. Gimme a right to work at a job I hate? You can have that too. Then tell I'm a Citizen of the greatest richest country on earth, if I dont believe it look at Park Avenue. Carnival prizes. All carnival prizes. [..] They shouldnt teach their immigrants' kids all about democracy unless they mean to let them have a little bit of it, it ony makes for trouble. Me and the United States is dissociating our alliance as of right now, until the United States can find time to read its own textbooks a little."

Prew thought, a little sickly, of the little book, The Man Without A Country that his mother used to read to him so often, and how the stern patriotic judge condemned the man to live on a warship where no one could ever mention home to him the rest of his whole life, and how he had always felt that pinpoint of pleased righteous anger at seeing the traitor get what he deserved. ~ James Jones

Nature is not dumb. Humanity is dumb when we can't hear or when we forget how to communicate with nature. Nature is very much alive. Intelligent living beings and vibrant energies are all over the planet. ~ Sun Bear

The Wellbriety path does not compete with A.A. or any other pathway of personal recovery, but instead enriches those pathways by embracing them within the web of Native American tribal histories and cultures. In these pages, you will meet people who have committed themselves to live their lives on the Red Road. Here you will meet Native people whose stories embody the living history of Native American recovery. You will hear the details of their addiction and recovery journeys and feel the life and hope in ~ White Bison

You cannot give up on the American dream. We cannot allow our fears and our disappointments to lead us into silence and into inaction. ~ Marco Rubio

Education is transformational. It changes lives. That is why people work so hard to become educated and why education has always been the key to the American Dream, the force that erases arbitrary divisions of race and class and culture and unlocks every person's God-given potential. ~ Condoleezza Rice

The vast majority of a significant portion of Americans of Hispanic descent will vote - happen to be working class people who are desperate to not only achieve the American dream but leave their kids better off than themselves. ~ Marco Rubio

I write about the American dream: if you set your mind to do something, you can do it. My fans know they're getting the real thing. ~ Jackie Collins

I believe that the gospel and the American Dream have fundamentally different starting points. The American Dream begins with self, exalts self, says you are inherently good and you have in you what it takes to be successful so do all you can, work with everything you have to make much of yourself. The gospel begins with God, the reality that we were created to exalt his name to the ends of the earth. ~ David Platt

Raising the minimum wage may poll well, but having a job that pays $10 an hour is not the American Dream. And our current government programs, offer at best only a partial solution. They help people deal with poverty, but they do not help them escape it. ~ Marco Rubio

World will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion ... ~ Jeff Shaara

Kill my boss? Do I dare live out the American dream? ~ Homer Simpson

Surely this new age is not a repudiation of, but a fulfillment of, the American dream. What were the machines for, unless to give man a new freedom to choose how he would live? ~ Charles A. Reich

In an artistic sense, cool came to refer to someone with a signature artistic style so integral as to exude an authentic mode-of-being in the world: Miles, Bogart, Brando, Eastwood, Greco, Elvis, Lady Day, Sinatra. Such a person created something from nothing and gave the world some new artistic or psychological 'equipment for living,' to use a phrase of Kenneth Burke's. A signature style is yours and can only be carried by you: it cannot be abstracted except through dilution and commodification since it reflects an individual's complex personal experience. In this sense, cool was 'making a dollar out of fifteen cents,' to pull another phrase from the Africa-American vernacular. Lester Young was once at a bar when a tenor saxophone solo floated out of the jukebox. 'That's me,' he said happily. As he listened his mood collapsed - he realized it was one of his many imitators. 'No, that's not me,' he said sadly. To steal someone else's sound or style and capitalize on it has always been un-cool, the pretense of posers. ~ Joel Dinerstein

FDR rejected Hamilton's focus on the needs of an economic elite in favor of «jefferson's focus on the needs and interst of the common man.
Pursuing the American Dream, 6, 175 ~ Calvin C. Jillson

Wisdom and peace come when you start living the life the creator intended for you. ~ Geronimo

I'm in a weird band. We've done very well. The American Dream is alive and well. ~ Gene Simmons

What I have said to people is that I've lived the American dream, because I have. ~ Carly Fiorina

Welcome to the American sector!
Feast your eyes on glorious Pluto, her wild frontier, her high standard of living, her rugged, hardworking citizens, her purple mountains majesty! Ride the mighty buffalo! Marvel at the bustling industry of the great cities of Jizo and Ascalaphus! Climb the peaks of Mt. Orcus and Mt. Chernobog! ~ Catherynne M Valente

I once read that if the folds in the cerebral cortex were smoothed out it would cover a card table. That seemed quite unbelievable but it did make me wonder just how big the cortex would be if you ironed it out. I thought it might just about cover a family-sized pizza: not bad, but no card-table. I was astonished to realize that nobody seems to know the answer. A quick search yielded the following estimates for the smoothed out dimensions of the cerebral cortex of the human brain.

An article in Bioscience in November 1987 by Julie Ann Miller claimed the cortex was a "quarter-metre square." That is napkin-sized, about ten inches by ten inches. Scientific American magazine in September 1992 upped the ante considerably with an estimated of 1 1/2 square metres; thats a square of brain forty inches on each side, getting close to the card-table estimate. A psychologist at the University of Toronto figured it would cover the floor of his living room (I haven't seen his living room), but the prize winning estimate so far is from the British magazine New Scientist's poster of the brain published in 1993 which claimed that the cerebral cortex, if flattened out, would cover a tennis court. How can there be such disagreement? How can so many experts not know how big the cortex is? I don't know, but I'm on the hunt for an expert who will say the cortex, when fully spread out, will cover a football field. A Canadian football field. ~ Jay Ingram

Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home
but not for housing. They are strong for labor
but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights. They favor minimum wage
the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all
but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine
for people who can afford them. They consider electrical power a great blessing
but only when the private power companies get their rake-off. They think American standard of living is a fine thing
so long as it doesn't spread to all the people. And they admire of Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it. ~ Harry Truman

It would be hard to find a more compelling example of the American dream than Alberto Gonzales. ~ Jon Kyl

There is much talk about the American Dream. I recall when the American Dream meant the opportunity to pursue your own goals, your own way. The politicians have perverted the dream to mean new homes and cars and a riskfree world. What happened to the real American Dream? ~ William B. Abernathy

I believe it is essential to have English as the official language of our National Government, for the English language is the tie that binds the millions of immigrants who come to America from divergent backgrounds. We should, and do, encourage immigrants to maintain and share their traditions, customs and religions, but the use of English is essential for immigrants and their children to participate fully in American society and achieve the American dream. ~ Jim Sensenbrenner

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

For a time, we forgot the American dream isn't one of making government bigger, it's keeping faith with the mighty spirit of free people under God ~ Ronald Reagan

We live in a culture of reductionism. Or better, we are living in the aftermath of a culture of reductionism, and I believe we have reduced the complexity and diversity of the Scriptures to systematic theologies that insist on ideological conformity, even when such conformity flattens the diversity of the Scriptural witness. We have reduced our conception of gospel to four simple steps that short-circuit biblical narratives and notions of the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven in favor of a simplified means of entrance to heaven. Our preaching is often wed to our materialistic, consumerist cultural assumptions, and sermons are subsequently reduced to delivering messages that reinforce the worst of what American culture produces: self-centered end users who believe that God is a resource that helps an individual secure what amounts to an anemic and culturally bound understanding of the 'abundant life. ~ Tim Keel

In Western society, and particularly in American society, imagination is stulified from infancy. The imaginative child is discouraged and upbraided. He is told that the process is mere dreaming, that it wastes time and leads nowhere. It is said to be "impractical." As the child grows and its imagination inevitably leads it to express unconventional ideas and to try new behavior, it is chided and even viciously punished for such signs of unorthodoxy. ~ Philip Wylie

I felt that it was unfair that my lack of a few pounds of flesh should deprive me of a chance at a good job but I had long ago emotionally rejected the world in which I lived and my reaction was: Well, this is the system by which people want the world to run whether it helps them or not. To me, my losing was only another manifestation of that queer, material way of American living that computed everything in terms of the concrete: weight, color, race, fur coats, radios, electric refrigerators, cars, money ... It seemed that I simply could not fit into a materialistic life. ~ Richard Wright

Most East Asians speak and dream in the language of the Han Empire. No matter what their origins, nearly all the inhabitants of the two American continents, from Alaska's Barrow Peninsula to the Straits of Magellan, communicate in one of four imperial languages: Spanish, Portuguese, French or English. Present-day Egyptians speak Arabic, think of themselves as Arabs, and identify wholeheartedly with the Arab Empire that conquered Egypt in the seventh century and crushed with an iron fist the repeated revolts that broke out against its rule. About 10 million Zulus in South Africa hark back to the Zulu age of glory in the nineteenth century, even though most of them descend from tribes who fought against the Zulu Empire, and were incorporated into it only through bloody military campaigns. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Living in the midst of abundance we have the greatest difficulty in seeing that the supply of natural wealth is limited and that the constant increase of population is destined to reduce the American standard of living unless we deal more sanely with our resources. ~ Wallace Carothers

If we apply the term revolution to what happened in North America between 1776 and 1829, it has a special meaning. Normally, the word describes the process by which man transforms himself from one kind of man, living in one kind of society, with one way of looking at the world, into another kind of man, another society, another conception of life ... The American case is different: it is not a question of the Old Man transforming himself into the New, but of the New Man becoming alive to the fact that he is new, that he has been transformed already without his having realized it. ~ W. H. Auden

If you want to chase a runaway ambulance toward what's left of the American Dream, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao show you that, still, somehow, boxing remains the yellow brick road in our country. ~ Brin-Jonathan Butler

The American press exists for one purpose only, and that is to convince Americans that they are living in the greatest and most envied country in the history of the world. The Press tells the American people how awful every other country is and how wonderful the United States is and how evil communism is and how happy they should be to have freedom to buy seven different sorts of detergent. ~ Gore Vidal

The American Dream is not being dependent on the federal government for your health care, for your automobile, for your college education, for your student loan on and on and on. ~ Marsha Blackburn

First known as "waste people," and later "white trash," marginalized Americans were stigmatized for their inability to be productive, to own property, or to produce healthy and upwardly mobile children - the sense of uplift on which the American dream is predicated. The American solution to poverty and social backwardness was not what we might expect. Well into the twentieth century, expulsion and even sterilization sounded rational to those who wished to reduce the burden of "loser" people on the larger economy. In ~ Nancy Isenberg

I'd say that what I do is like a crack in the mirror. If you go back over the books from Carrie on up, what you see is an observation of ordinary middle-class American life as it's lived at the time that particular book was written. In every life you get to a point where you have to deal with something that's inexplicable to you, whether it's the doctor saying you have cancer or a prank phone call. So whether you talk about ghosts or vampires or Nazi war criminals living down the block, we're still talking about the same thing, which is an intrusion of the extraordinary into ordinary life and how we deal with it. What that shows about our character and our interactions with others and the society we live in interests me a lot more than monsters and vampires and ghouls and ghosts. ~ Stephen King

Life is impoverished, it loses in interest, when the highest stake in the game of living, life itself, may not be risked. It becomes as shallow and empty as, let us say, an American flirtation. ~ Sigmund Freud

Let's go tell everyone we meet that, when the American dream is at stake, you want Barack Obama in charge. ~ Deval Patrick