Quotes & Sayings About Success And The American Dream

An All-American is an ordinary person with an extraordinary desire to excel. You don't get to the top of the mountain by just dreaming. It's nice to dream. But it's the work ethic and pride that makes you get to that mountain top and that level of success. — Dick Vitale

The negative side of the American Dream comes when people pursue success at any cost, which in turn destroys the vision and the dream. — Azar Nafisi

The American Dream is one of success, home ownership, college education for one's children, and have a secure job to provide these and other goals. — Leonard Boswell

And this is why I have concluded that although every racial, ethnic, and religious group in the United States claims to want a piece of the American dream, there is no group that apologizes more for its success than black people. — Lawrence Otis Graham

Admitting that racism has played a part in our success means admitting that the American dream isn't quite so accessible to all. — Jodi Picoult

Welcome to Hollywood. Here you can be whatever you want! That's the secret of American success! Fake it till you make it! — Lily Amis

Success is the American Dream. And that success is not something to be ashamed of, or to demonize. — Susana Martinez

Being materialistic is part of the hip-hop community's nature, because jazz and blues and rock 'n' roll, when they started out in the urban communities, were about the American Dream, and the lack of opportunity in that structure. So they talked about everything - uplifting and getting what is perceived as success in America. — Russell Simmons

On 17th July there came to us at Potsdam the eagerly-awaited news of the trial of the atomic bomb in the [New] Mexican desert. Success beyond all dreams crowded this sombre, magnificent venture of our American allies. The detailed reports ... could leave no doubt in the minds of the very few who were informed, that we were in the presence of a new factor in human affairs, and possessed of powers which were irresistible. — Winston Churchill

I've long been interested in looking at the culture of consumerism and also was interested in this connection between the American dream and the house, and the house being kind of the ultimate expression of self and success. — Lauren Greenfield

The American Dream became America's god; wealth and abundance have become the measure of America's success. But - as recent events have shown - we have been living an illusion. — Billy Graham

I believe the American dream is still alive and that education and entrepreneurship together are its key enablers. Through the years I have observed the power of this combination when the two forces work in tandem. Together they lead to personal success, business success, and societal success. — Ralph De La Vega

Democrats believe in reigniting the American dream by removing barriers to success and building ladders of opportunity for all, so everyone can succeed. — Nancy Pelosi

Whether you attribute it to some mysterious triple package or to your own Horatio Alger story, to succeed in America is, somehow, to be complicit with the idea of America - which means that at some level you've made peace with its rather ugly past. — Vijay Iyer

Actually, Wilson's art can't fit into these neat categories. My own take is that the best way to think of Wilson is as an outsider musician, but one who actually happens to have a huge amount of talent. Much like, say, Wesley Willis, Wilson is focussed on having huge commercial success, but has little to no idea what actually counts as commercial. He's very easily swayed by people around him, so if he's told he should be doing three-minute pop songs, he does three-minute pop songs, and if he's told he should do epic suites about the American Dream, he does those. But at all times there are two things that remain true about him: he has an unerring ability as an arranger, and a directness that makes his music more communicative than any other music I've ever heard. — Andrew Hickey

Let us be thankful for the fools,' Mark Twain wrote with typically dark humor in 1897. 'But for them the rest of us could not succeed.' Of all the paradoxes of failure in America, surely this is the darkest. Long ago, we saw through old fables of rags to riches; it is still fun to dream, but we know that we are partaking of a cultural myth. But if we do not quite believe in that kind of success, our faith in the myths of failure is unshaken. We are merrily cynical about whether the average tycoon really tugged on those bootstraps, but we still believe with deadly seriousness that the reasons for failure are usually individual-- "in the man." Failure is not the dark side of the American Dream; it is the foundation of it. The American Dream gives each of us the chance to be a born loser. — Scott A. Sandage

What was I so enthusiastic about? The American Dream - The opportunity for everyone to success, to get somewhere by their own efforts, and like many teenagers, I was also a fan of a certain brand of jeans that couldn't be bought in the GDR, but I had an aunt in the west who used to send them to me. I loved the vast American landscapes, where the air is full of spirit of freedom and independence. In 1990 my husband and I flew to America for the very first time, to California. We will never forget that view of the Pacific Ocean. It was nothing short of magnificent. — Stefan Kornelius

Success is somebody else's failure. Success is the American Dream we can keep dreaming because most people in most places, including thirty million of ourselves, live wide awake in the terrible reality of poverty. — Ursula K. Le Guin

We're not so free that we don't have to listen to rules, and laws, and regulations. Those are important. But the spirit, the freedom of the spirit, that's what I think of American Dream, that we are free here to do what we want to do, what we set out to do. — Martha Stewart

The American Dream has always focused on building a better life for yourself and your family, striving for success, and even fleeing from religious prosecution. — Marc Veasey

Bernard Harris is a great example of the American success story. In Dream Walker he describes how he is trying to pass on his experience and success to the next generation
we can all learn from his real life story. — Craig R. Barrett

The American Dream was not about government's taking huge sums of money (under the label of "taxation") from citizens by force. The American Dream was about individualism and the opportunity to achieve success without interference from others. — Robert Ringer

The road to success is not easy to navigate, but with hard work, drive and passion, it's possible to achieve the American dream. — Tommy Hilfiger

Appealing to our subconscious emotions rather than our conscious intellects, advertisements are designed to exploit the discontentments fostered by the American dream, the constant desire for social success and the material rewards that accompany it. — Sonia Maasik