American Family Quotes

• It is that fundamental belief, it is that fundamental belief, I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family. E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.

  Barack Obama

  Dream, Country, Brother

  2004 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address, delivered 27 July 2004, Fleet Center, Boston

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• There is no institution more vital to our Nation's survival than the American family. Here the seeds of personal character are planted, the roots of public virtue first nourished. Through love and instruction, discipline, guidance and example, we learn from our mothers and fathers the values that will shape our private lives and our public citizenship.

  Ronald Reagan

  Mother, Father, Character

  Reagan, Ronald (1982). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1981”, p.445, Best Books on

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• American families only spend 17 minutes a day on average having time together.

  Daniel L. Doctoroff

  Average, Together, Minutes

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• Nothing in our daily life offers more of the comfort of continuity, the generational connection of belonging to a vast and complicated American family, the powerful sense of home, the freedom from time's constraints, and the great gift of accumulated memory than does our National Pastime.

  Ken Burns

  Memories, Powerful, Home

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• Nothing even comes a close second. Hillary Clinton, for instance, talks constantly about her fears that families will be separated, but she's not talking about the American families who have been permanently separated from their loved ones because of a preventable homicide, because of a preventable death, because of murder.

  Donald Trump

  Talking, Murder, Loved Ones

  Donald Trump's immigration speech in Phoenix, Arizona, www.nytimes.com. September 1, 2016.

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• 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

  Gay, Bisexual, Past

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• 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

  Breakup, Lying, Home

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• 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

  Average, America, Long

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.127, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• 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

  War, Textiles, Wrecks

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• I am emphatically against the privatization of Social Security. It is going to hurt millions of American women, American families and ultimately the whole country

  Barbara Mikulski

  Country, Hurt, Social

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• I am an eighth Chinese, and I come from a large Chinese-American family in Los Angeles.

  Lisa See

  Chinese, Los Angeles

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• I don't like the subtle infiltration of 'something for nothing' philosophies into the very hearthstone of the American family. I believe that 'Thou shalt earn the bread by the sweat of thy face' was a benediction and not a penalty. Work is the zest of life; there is joy in its pursuit.

  Branch Rickey

  Philosophy, Believe, Zest

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• American families, families back home in Minnesota, know only too well that out-of-pocket expenses for health care have been rising at an astonishing rate.

  Jim Ramstad

  Home, Pockets, Rising

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• Rural American families who depend on firewood to heat their homes will be hit just as hard as those who use oil and natural gas.

  Richard Pombo

  Home, Oil, Use

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• Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. … We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it's no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits.

  Bryan Fischer

  Husband, Father, People

  "New reality: You are what you tweet" by Jennifer Martinez, www.politico.com. May 05, 2011.

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• 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

  Break Up, Thinking, Ideas

  Interview with Adrian Wootton, www.theguardian.com. September 7, 2000.

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• The average American family head will be forced to do twenty years' labor to pay taxes in his or her lifetime.

  James Bovard

  Average, Years, Liberty

  James Bovard (1995). “Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty”, p.289, Palgrave Macmillan

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• 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

  Emergencies, Medical, Financial

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• I think it's true about people now being closer to their parents, since the '60s, really. The parents are no longer from a different planet, the 1950s ideas of American family. We could be friends with our parents. After the '60s, it wasn't like a person smoking pot was what the parents would be appalled at.

  Tama Janowitz

  Thinking, Ideas, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• And it was from Boston that one in every six American families began their journey into the land of the free.

  Thomas Menino

  Journey, Boston, Land

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• Like so many American families, our families weren't asking for much. They didn't begrudge anyone else's success or care that others had much more than they did, in fact, they admired it.

  Michelle Obama

  Asking, Care, Facts

  Democratic National Convention speech, 2012.

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• 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

  Adventure, Pajamas, Hours

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• New Rule: If an Evangelical tries to use Halloween to pimp Jesus to kids, they get to egg his house. On Halloween, the president of the American Family Association urged his flock to hand out a Christian-based comic book instead of candy. Excuse me, Halloween isn't a time to push your beliefs. You don't see me handing out pot to kids...Okay, well not the little kids.

  Bill Maher

  Christian, Jesus, Halloween

  Bill Maher (2011). “The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody but Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass”, p.95, Penguin

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• We work on macro issues and macaroni and cheese issues. When women are in the halls of power, our national debate reflects the needs and dreams of American families.

  Barbara Mikulski

  Dream, Badass, Issues

  "Women in the US Senate: a guide to the 20 female senators" by Emma G. Keller, www.theguardian.com. November 09, 2012.

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• Studies have consistently shown that financial hardship is the biggest obstacle to heterosexual marriage, yet the Republican leadership has done precious little to help address the financial hardship faced by American families.

  Kendrick Meek

  Leadership, Financial Hardship, Done

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