American Dream By Immigrants Quotes & Sayings

Immigrants have faced huge obstacles to achieving the American Dream, yet have persevered to overcome them. — Charles B. Rangel

What's so curious about human beings is that we can look deeply into the future, foresee disaster, and still do nothing in the present to stop it. The majority of people on this planet, they're overwhelmed with concerns about their immediate well being. — Daniel M. Gilbert

God often waits until we're out of ideas before He lets us know His plans. He competes for our hearts, not our attention. — Bob Goff

Doing difficult things like passing marriage equality, passing the Dream Act, doing common sense things that allow new American immigrants to fully participate, pay their taxes, play by the rules and take care of their families. That's the inclusive America that I believe all of us want to move to. — Martin O'Malley

It is true that the top quintile is getting richer while the bottom is getting poorer, but the bottom is not the same people. There is, fortunately, a constant churning at the bottom as new immigrants move in and those who used to be on the bottom begin their long, thrilling upward climb to the American dream. — Dick Morris

Stop giving Doctor Who answers! Tell me the truth! — Charlie Jane Anders

Our parents taught us to love God, love our family and love our country. Their own grandparents were immigrants. Their first language may not have been English, but the hopes and dreams they had for their children were purely American. — Martin O'Malley

More than an actor, I am a performer ... I'm a great believer - honestly so, shamelessly so, vulgarly so - that cinema is for entertainment. If you want to send messages, there's the postal service. — Shah Rukh Khan

Like tens of millions of Americans, my parents were immigrants. They were poor and did not speak English well. They went to flea markets and sold gifts to make ends meet. Eventually, through hard work, they opened six gift stores in shopping malls. My parents achieved the American dream; they went from being poor to a home and gave my brother and me an amazing education. I wanted to serve the country that gave so much to my family. — Ted Lieu

This is the first great problem of modern democracy ... how to get a fair living by reasonable hours of work leaving enough leisure for both childhood and manhood. — John R. Commons

I love reform better than its modes. — Henry David Thoreau

Understand that I'm at my best when it comes to proving a point, not only to show that I'm a better fighter and a better athlete at 40½ years old, but I'm at my best when I know I've got to beat the system again. — Bernard Hopkins

I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe, that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction. — George Washington

A family from Mexico who arrived here this morning, legally, has as much right to the American dream as the direct descendants of the founding fathers ... when the blood of the sons of immigrants and the grandsons of slaves fell on foreign fields, it was American blood. In it you could not read the ethnic particulars of the soldier who died next to you. He was an American. And when I think of how we learned this lesson, I wonder [how] we could have unlearned it. — Bob Dole

The way the kids of immigrants heard about America, you would think it was not down the stairs and out the door but still across the ocean, a distant place where everything is promised and, for hard work, everything is given. From the day he left his parents' house, Abe [Reles] had to know his father was right, that America promises everything, but he also had to know his father was wrong--America gives nothing. Those things that are promised, they cannot be worked for but must be taken, conned away with good looks, obsequiousness, mimicry; or traded for with bit of your soul or the morals of the stories your parents told; or tricked away with lies; or wrested away with brute force. — Rich Cohen

But it was all a pipe dream. As well try to stop an avalanche as to stop the moving frontier. American immigrants and emigrants wanted their share of land - free land - a farm in the family - the dream of European peasants for hundreds of years - the New World's great gift to the old. Moving west with the tide were the hucksters, the lawyers, merchants, and other men on the make looking for the main chance, men who could manufacture a land warrant in the wink of an eye. This — Stephen E. Ambrose

I hope I'll have the opportunity to debate how we reform and update our immigration system. I will relate my own story and that of the countless immigrants whose American Dream stories have helped build our country into the greatest nation in the world. — Ami Bera

Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found. — Pema Chodron

The library helps lower- and middle-income people - immigrants - get their shot at the American dream. — Stephen A. Schwarzman

We need to remain a nation that doesn't just welcome but that celebrates legal immigrants who come here seeking to pursue the American Dream. — Ted Cruz

If it makes you feel better, you can tell me to screw off if you want to refuse anything, but I hope you won't because I really want to show you how to live. - Andrew Parrish — J.A. Redmerski

Like so many first generation children of Indian immigrants, I learned to believe in a dream that is as much American as it is universal: a dream of equal opportunity for all based on merit, of power concentrated not in the hands of a few at the top, but fanning across a large, educated, and civically engaged middle class. — Leila Janah

Our body is the vehicle that we are given for our journey and if we do not take care of it, we will find ourselves broken down on the side of the road facing costly and time-consuming repairs. — John Patrick Hickey

I guess my ideals died the hardest. It's often that way with the children of immigrants. We need to buy the dream so bad we sometimes can't wake up. — Sara Paretsky

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