American Life Quotes

• [last words] What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.

  Crowfoot

  Sunset, Native American, Firefly

  "Aging in the Modern World: Selections from the Literature of Aging for Pleasure and Instruction". Book by ‎Clark Tibbitts, p. 222, 1957.

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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.

  Crowfoot

  Life, Change, Death

  96 Copy quote

• Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.

  Tecumseh

  Inspirational, Appreciation, Fear

  "A Sourcebook for Earth's Community of Religions". Book by Joel Diederik Beversluis, 1993.

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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.

  Chief Seattle

  Life, Lonely, Nature

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• Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.

  Tecumseh

  Love You, Native American, Perfect

  "A Sourcebook for Earth's Community of Religions". Book by Joel Diederik Beversluis, 1993.

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• Our new immigrants must be part of our one America. After all, they're revitalizing our cities, they're energizing our culture, they're building up our economy. We have a responsibility to make them welcome here, and they have a responsibility to enter the mainstream of American life. That means learning English and learning about our democratic system of government. There are now long waiting lines of immigrants that are trying to do just that. Therefore, our budget significantly expands our efforts to help them meet their responsibility. I hope you will support it.

  William J. Clinton

  Mean, Responsibility, Government

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• American life is builded ... upon that fundamental philosophy announced by the Savior nineteen centuries ago ... [It] can not survive with the defense of Cain, "Am I my brother's keeper?

  Herbert Hoover

  Brother, Philosophy, Fundamentals

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• People are interested in pro football because it provides them with an emotional oasis; they don't want football to get involved in the same types of court cases, racial problems and legislative issues they encounter in the rest of American life.

  Pete Rozelle

  Football, Emotional, Oasis

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• Dad worked his entire career as an aviation technician. Mom was a legal secretary who became a teacher. We lived a simple American life.

  Brian Sandoval

  Mom, Teacher, Dad

  "Brian Sandoval RNC speech". www.politico.com. August 29, 2012.

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• I hate going to bed. I read scripts, clean, listen to the radio - I've fallen asleep to 'This American Life' more times than I can count!

  Zoe Kazan

  Hate, Bed, Radio

  "Need to Meet: Zoe Kazan". Interview with Thelma Adams, www.marieclaire.com. February 11, 2010.

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• When American life is most American it is apt to be most theatrical.

  Ralph Ellison

  Life Is, Theatrical

  Ralph Ellison (2011). “Shadow and Act”, p.53, Vintage

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• And every historic effort to forge a democratic project has been undermined by two fundamental realities: poverty and paranoia. The persistence of poverty generates levels of despair that deepen social conflict the escalation of paranoia produces levels of distrust that reinforce cultural division. Rae is the most explosive issue in American life precisely because it forces us to confront the tragic facts of poverty and paranoia despair, and distrust. In short, a candid examination of race matters takes us to the core of the crisis of American democracy (p. 107).

  Cornel West

  Reality, Persistence, Two

  Cornel West (2017). “Race Matters: With a New Introduction”, p.107, Beacon Press

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• Though the two issues may seem utterly unrelated, they do have this in common - both health care and higher education are realms of American life in which government has undermined the operation of market forces and caused artificially high prices. These are two arenas in which the Democrats now propose to do exactly the wrong thing. Their reform reinforces old errors and will infinitely compound the problem of rising prices.

  Mona Charen

  Rising Prices, Two, Issues

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• Illiberal left ideology has its greatest strength on campuses because campuses are one of the few places in American life where a certain kind of far-left politics can actually impose hegemony on other ideas and really control the discourse in a way it can't in most places in American life where even moderate liberals are more of a minority.

  Jonathan Chait

  Ideas, Hegemony, Minorities

  Source: www.npr.org

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• Now I would say at any given moment in American life, there are probably 45 poets in airplanes vectoring across the country heading towards...I don't know if anyone's reading it, but poets are still flying around the country going from lectern to lectern.That circuitry has become very well-established.

  Billy Collins

  Country, Reading, Airplane

  "Poet Billy Collins discusses humor, authenticity and ‘Aimless Love’". "PBS Newshour", www.pbs.org. October 29, 2013.

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• The English Language Amendment says above all, 'Let's see to it that our children, our young people, learn English. Let us not deny them the opportunity to participate in American life, so that they can go as far as their dreams and talents can take them.

  S. I. Hayakawa

  Dream, Children, Opportunity

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• I believe we are being dishonest with language minority groups if we tell them they can take full part in American life without learning the English language.

  S. I. Hayakawa

  Believe, Groups, Minorities

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• Never before has the seductive market way of life held such sway in nearly every sphere of American life. This marketing way of life promotes addictions to stimulation and obsessions with comfort and convenience ... centered primarily around bodily pleasures and status rankings. ... The common denominator is a rugged and ragged individualism and rapacious hedonism in quest of a perennial "high" in body and mind.

  Cornel West

  Addiction, Seductive, Black History

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• The surface of American life looks smooth, prosperous, peaceful. But underneath, fault-line shifts in family and work life have led us into what some have called 'advanced insecurity.

  Arlie Russell Hochschild

  Insecurity, Peaceful, Faults

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• Frank Capra, Hollywood's Horatio Alger, lights with more cinematic know-how and zeal than any other director to convince movie audiences that American life is exactly like the 'Saturday Evening Post' covers of Norman Rockwell. 'It's A Wonderful Life,' the latest example of Capracorn, shows his art at a hysterical pitch.

  Manny Farber

  Art, Light, Evening

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• We will send ships and Marines as soon as possible for the protection of American life and property.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Marine, America, Usa

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• Race has no place in American life or law.

  John F. Kennedy

  Race, Law

  Civil Rights Address, delivered 11 June 1963

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• Bean-counting government bureaucrats are free to take race, ethnicity and gender into account when doling out public funds to non-white-male contractors. But God help law enforcement officers, air marshals and border agents who try to use those same factors to combat terrorism and protect American lives.

  Michelle Malkin

  White, Race, Government

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• I think it's a very legitimate aspect of American life to criticize and to disagree and to debate. But I want to say I think it's a lie to say that the president lied to the American people. I sat on the Robb-Silverman Commission. I saw many, many analysts that came before that committee. I asked every one of them-I said, 'Did-were you ever pressured politically or any other way to change your analysis of the situation as you saw?' Every one of them said no.

  John McCain

  Lying, Thinking, People

  "'The Early Show' Cherry-Picks McCain's "Face The Nation" Interview". www.newsbusters.org. November 14, 2005.

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• In our methodical American life, we still recognize some magic in summer. Most persons at least resign themselves to being decently happy in June. They accept June. They compliment its weather. They complain of the earlier months as cold, and so spend them in the city; and they complain of the later months as hot, and so refrigerate themselves on some barren sea-coast. God offers us yearly a necklace of twelve pearls; most men choose the fairest, label it June, and cast the rest away.

  Thomas Wentworth Higginson

  Summer, Men, Weather

  Thomas Wentworth Higginson (2007). “Outdoor Studies, Poems”, p.55, Reprint Services Corporation

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