American

Famous quotes containing the word american:

    There can be no more ancient and traditional American value than ignorance. English-only speakers brought it with them to this country three centuries ago, and they quickly imposed it on the Africans—who were not allowed to learn to read and write—and on the Native Americans, who were simply not allowed.
    Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)

    It is the American vice, the democratic disease which expresses its tyranny by reducing everything unique to the level of the herd.
    Henry Miller (1891–1980)

    An accurate charting of the American woman’s progress through history might look more like a corkscrew tilted slightly to one side, its loops inching closer to the line of freedom with the passage of time—but like a mathematical curve approaching infinity, never touching its goal. . . . Each time, the spiral turns her back just short of the finish line.
    Susan Faludi (20th century)