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

  100 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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• 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.

  71 Copy quote

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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

  206 Copy quote

• One of the manifestations of depression for me is that I lose my will. And I thereby lose my ability to focus. I don't think I'll ever have the day-to-day consistency in my performance that something like This American Life has. If I'm not depressed and I'm on and I can focus and I can think through something hard and without interruption and without existential emptiness that comes from depression, that gives me - not mania. But I exalt. I exalt in not being depressed.

  Rachel Maddow

  Thinking, Giving, Focus

  4 Copy quote

• The great and invigorating influences in American life have been the unorthodox: the people who challenge an existing institution or way of life, or say and do things that make people think.

  William O. Douglas

  Thinking, America, People

  23 Copy quote

• In the decade of the 1980s, a massive and comprehensive study of religion in American life was undertaken by the Gallup organization. The results of the study were as terrifying as they were revealing. Americans, even evangelical Americans, are woefully ignorant of the content of Scripture and even more ignorant of the history of Christianity and classical Christian theology.

  R. C. Sproul

  Christian, Organization, Ignorant

  R. C. Sproul (2011). “Essential Truths of the Christian Faith”, p.11, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

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• Envy is the central fact of American life.

  Gore Vidal

  Envy, Facts

  Gore Vidal, Richard Peabody, Lucinda Ebersole (2005). “Conversations with Gore Vidal”, p.43, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Vanity Fair has but two major articles in its editorial creed: first, to believe in the progress and promise of American life, and, second, to chronicle that progress cheerfully, truthfully, and entertainingly.

  Frank Crowninshield

  Believe, Two, Vanity

  7 Copy quote

• English is the key to full participation in the opportunities of American life.

  S. I. Hayakawa

  Opportunity, Keys, Participation

  17 Copy quote

• The Declaration of Independence summarizes the civic principles of American life. It agrees with this biblical perspective when it affirms that we are all created equal and endowed by the Creator, God, with our unalienable rights.

  Alan Keyes

  Biblical, Rights, Creator God

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• If you read the biographies of people who have written good books, you often see the point where they suddenly come into themselves, and those weeks in the spring of 1997 were when I came into myself as a writer. They feel like some of the best weeks of writing I’ll ever have. The discovery that I could write better about something as trivial as an ordinary family dinner than I could about the exploding prison population of the United States, and the corporatization of American life, and all the other things I’d been trying to do, was a real revelation.

  Jonathan Franzen

  Spring, Real, Book

  4 Copy quote

• That does not mean we won't experience the tragedy of the loss of some American lives. We will have an opportunity to instill a democracy in Iraq which will be an example and perhaps force other nations in that region to move in the same direction.

  John McCain

  Moving, Mean, Loss

  "McCain: We will win this conflict easily". Interview With Wolf Blitzer, www.cnn.com. January 22, 2003.

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• Hughes' debut novel, At Dawn, follows a former All-American wrestler, and is there any better metaphor for contemporary American life? We're all wrestling, tussling with the economy, no jobs, doing the best we can. Hughes doesn't flinch from the tough existential questions. He embraces them.

  Joshua Mohr

  Jobs, Wrestling, Dawn

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• As Americans, we want peace - we work and sacrifice for peace. But there can be no peace if our security depends on the will and whims of a ruthless and aggressive dictator. I'm not willing to stake one American life on trusting Saddam Hussein.

  George W. Bush

  Leadership, Sacrifice, Hussein

  Address to the Nation on the Threat of Iraq, delivered 7 October 2002, Cincinnati Union Terminal, Cincinnati, Ohio

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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.

  Sean O'Casey

  Work, People, Giving

  Sean O'Casey (2011). “Autobiographies III: Rose and Crown and Sunset and Evening Star”, p.163, Faber & Faber

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• There is one expanding horror in American life. It is that our long odyssey toward liberty, democracy and freedom-for-all may be achieved in such a way that utopia remains forever closed, and we live in freedom and hell, debased of style, not individual from one another, void of courage, our fear rationalized away.

  Norman Mailer

  Freedom, America, Long

  1966 Cannibals and Christians,'My Hope For America'.

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• Yale is a crucible in American life for the accommodation of intellectual achievement, of wisdom, of refinement, with the democratic ideals of openness, of social justice and of equal opportunity.

  Benno C. Schmidt, Jr.

  Opportunity, Yale, Democratic Ideals

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• I don't like to lose, and that isn't so much because it is just a football game, but because defeat means the failure to reach your objective. I don't want a football player who doesn't take defeat to heart, who laughs it off with the thought, "Oh, well, there's another Saturday." The trouble in American life today, in business as well as in sports, is that too many people are afraid of competition. The result is that in some circles people have come to sneer at success if it costs hard work and training and sacrifice.

  Knute Rockne

  Sports, Football, Business

  76 Copy quote

• Together we can save American lives, American jobs, and American futures.

  Donald Trump

  Jobs, Together We Can, Together

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

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• The politics of that year [2004] are old now, but the problem remains the same, the real culture clash of American life. It's between the essence of fundamentalism - paternalism, authority, and charity - and the messy imperatives of democracy, "the din of the vox populi" once derided by Abram Vereide. It's the difference between false unity, preached from above, and real solidarity, pledged between brothers and sisters - the kinds who are always bickering.

  Jeff Sharlet

  Brother, Real, Essence

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• Senator Allen has long been a leader on competitiveness issues in the Senate and as governor of Virginia. His announcement of the Competitiveness Caucus comes as great news to the nation's manufacturers. We support every item on this agenda and will work with Senator Allen and others to make it a reality. The time has come for Congress to recognize the vital role manufacturing plays in American life and do what it can to strengthen our ability to compete in the global marketplace.

  John Engler

  Reality, Virginia, Play

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• Hurricane Katrina, coupled with Hurricane Rita, which came promptly on Katrina's heels, claimed more than 1,200 American lives. Together, they caused more than $200 billion in damage.

  Ellen Tauscher

  High Heels, Together, Damage

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• Buffett's uncommon urge to chronicle made him a unique character in American life, not only a great capitalist but the Great Explainer of American capitalism. He taught a generation how to think about business, and he showed that securities were not just tokens like the Monopoly flatiron, and that investing need not be a game of chance. It was also a logical, commonsensical enterprise, like the tangible businesses beneath. He stripped Wall Street of its mystery and rejoined it to Main Street -- a mythical or disappearing place, perhaps, but one that is comprehensible to the ordinary American.

  Roger Lowenstein

  Wall, Character, Thinking

  Roger Lowenstein (2013). “Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist”, p.425, Random House

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