American Society Quotes

“I was astonished, bewildered. This was America, a country where, whatever its faults, people could speak, write, assemble, demonstrate without fear. It was in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. We were a democracy...

But I knew it wasn't a dream; there was a painful lump on the side of my head...

The state and its police were not neutral referees in a society of contending interests. They were on the side of the rich and powerful. Free speech? Try it and the police will be there with their horses, their clubs, their guns, to stop you.

From that moment on, I was no longer a liberal, a believer in the self-correcting character of American democracy. I was a radical, believing that something fundamental was wrong in this country--not just the existence of poverty amidst great wealth, not just the horrible treatment of black people, but something rotten at the root. The situation required not just a new president or new laws, but an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society--cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian.”
― Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

“I want to say before I go on that I have never previously told anyone my sordid past in detail. I haven't done it now to sound as though I might be proud of how bad, how evil, I was.

But people are always speculating-why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life, from birth, must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient.

Today, when everything that I do has an urgency, I would not spend one hour in the preparation of a book which had the ambition to perhaps titillate some readers. But I am spending many hours
because the full story is the best way that I know to have it seen, and understood, that I had sunk to the very bottom of the American white man's society when-soon now, in prison-I found Allah and the religion of Islam and it completely transformed my life.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“Right now I'm thinking a good deal about emancipation. One of our sins was slavery, another was emancipation. It's a paradox. In theory, emancipation was one of the glories of our democracy - and it was. But the way it was done led to tragedy, turning four million people loose with no jobs or trades or learning. And then in 1877 for a few electoral votes, just abandoning them entirely. A huge amount of pain and trouble resulted. Everybody in America is still paying for it.”
― Shelby Foote

“[T]here is both an intrinsic and instrumental value to privacy. Intrinsically, privacy is precious to the extent that it is a component of a liberty. Part of citizenship in a free society is the expectation that one's personal affairs and physical person are inviolable so long as one remains within the law. A robust concept of freedom includes the freedom from constant and intrusive government surveillance of one's life. From this perspective, Fourth Amendment violations are objectionable for the simple fact that the government is doing something it has no licence to do–that is, invading the privacy of a law-abiding citizen by monitoring her daily activities and laying hands on her person without any evidence of wrongdoing.

Privacy is also instrumental in nature. This aspect of the right highlights the pernicious effects, rather than the inherent illegitimacy, of intrusive, suspicionless surveillance. For example, encroachments on individual privacy undermine democratic institutions by chilling free speech. When citizens–especially those espousing unpopular viewpoints–are aware that the intimate details of their personal lives are pervasively monitored by government, or even that they could be singled out for discriminatory treatment by government officials as a result of their First Amendment expressive activities, they are less likely to freely express their dissident views.”
― John W. Whitehead, A Government Of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State

“Before Sept. 11, the idea that Americans would voluntarily agree to live their lives under the gaze of a network of biometric surveillance cameras, peering at them in government buildings, shopping malls, subways and stadiums, would have seemed unthinkable, a dystopian fantasy of a society that had surrendered privacy and anonymity.”
― Jeffrey Rosen

“When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.”
― Isaac Asimov

“So you've been gone a couple days,' Alison said. 'Hmm, what'd you miss...A celebrity did drugs. Politicians disagreed. A different celebrity wore a bikini that revealed a bodily imperfection. A team won a sporting event, but another team lost.' I smiled. 'You can't go disappearing on everybody like this, Hazel. You miss too much.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Our current modes of rationality are not moving society forward into a better world. They are taking it further and further from that better world. Since the Renaissance these modes have worked. As long as the need for food, clothing and shelter is dominant they will continue to work. But now that for huge masses of people these needs no longer overwhelm everything else, the whole structure of reason, handed down to us from ancient times, is no longer adequate. It begins to be seen for what it really is...emotionally hollow, esthetically meaningless and spiritually empty. That, today, is where it is at, and will continue to be at for a long time to come.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

“In America, the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers, an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them. Not that he is in danger of an auto-da-fe, but he is exposed to continued obloquy and persecution. His political career is closed forever since he has offended the only authority that is able to open it. Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, is refused to him. Before making public his opinions he thought he had sympathizers; now it seems to him that he has none any more since he revealed himself to everyone; then those who blame him criticize him loudly and those who think as he does keep quiet and move away without courage. He yields at length, over-come by the daily effort which he has to make, and subsides into silence, as if he felt remorse for speaking the truth.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America -; Volume 1

“The tension between people is palpable, and the ideal of what it means to be and look American becomes a preoccupation to folks around the country, including me.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

“American can mean anything you want it to mean. It can mean that you live in America. It can mean that you are privileged. Being American can also mean that you are diverse. In many ways, the title American is an oxymoron because one may look it on the outside but not feel it on the inside.”
― Ciore Taylor, The Conversation Starts Here: A Perspective of Self, Culture, and the American Society

“Differences simply act as a yarn of curiosity unraveling until we get to the other side.”
― Ciore Taylor, The Conversation Starts Here: A Perspective of Self, Culture, and the American Society

“I am living in world full of lost hope and discrimination. I am living a life in which social equality does not exist and I am not sure that it ever can, or if once upon a time it ever did.”
― Ciore Taylor, The Conversation Starts Here: A Perspective of Self, Culture, and the American Society

“My skin is beautiful but it also serves as a huge barrier for so many opportunities that I want to pursue in life.”
― Ciore Taylor, The Conversation Starts Here: A Perspective of Self, Culture, and the American Society

“American culture has regressed because of contemporary society’s glorification of making a good living and spending free time in media activities rather than constantly devoting themselves to a learning and self-improvement. The combination of grooming youngsters to fit into a commercial workplace and Americans willingness to submit themselves to endless hours of watching television shows filled with murders, violence, sex, and replete with advertisements that promote the goods of commercial giants has eroded the American spirit and contributed to lack of an intellectually sophisticated populous.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“In many ways, the title American is an oxymoron because one may look it on the outside but not feel it on the inside.”
― Ciore Taylor

“It’s unfortunate really—how everyone can live on the same soil yet not even know the first thing about their neighbors.”
― Ciore Taylor, The Conversation Starts Here: A Perspective of Self, Culture, and the American Society

“What America needs is character - a character, bright enough to shine over a whole community - a character burning with love, passion and purity - a character free from all sorts of sectarianism, be it religious, political or atheistic.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Build Bridges not Walls: In the name of Americana

“Evangelicals usually fail to challenge the system not just out of concern for evangelism, but also because they support the American system and enjoy its fruits. They share the Protestant work ethic, support laissez-faire economics, and sometimes fail to evaluate whether the social system is consistent with their Christianity.”
― Christian Smith, Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America

“Because evangelicals view their primary task as evangelism and discipleship,1 they tend to avoid issues that hinder these activities. Thus, they are generally not counter-cultural. With some significant exceptions, they avoid “rocking the boat,” and live within the confines of the larger culture. At times they have been able to call for and realize social change, but most typically their influence has been limited to alterations at the margins. So, despite having the subcultural tools to call for radical changes in race relations, they most consistently call for changes in persons that leave the dominant social structures, institutions, and culture intact. This avoidance of boat-rocking unwittingly leads to granting power to larger economic and social forces. It also means that evangelicals’ views to a considerable extent conform to the socioeconomic conditions of their time.”
― Christian Smith, Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America

“Sometimes, the reason that people don’t get along is because they feel that their role is to be selfish or submissive—not understanding that American simply means understanding who we are so that we can help others do the same.”
― Ciore Taylor, The Conversation Starts Here: A Perspective of Self, Culture, and the American Society

“Reality tries to disguise the fact that this society neglects to provide equal opportunity established by God and clarified in the Constitution. Whether equal opportunity is given to an individual or not, he/she still has the equal potential within him/herself to advance and obtain a greater level of success.”
― Ciore Taylor, The Conversation Starts Here: A Perspective of Self, Culture, and the American Society

“I'm trap in marriage with gangsta rhyme and my street life.”
― Kjiva

“My dear brave sibling from Mother America, pierce through the veil of stereotypes and rise - rise my friend, rise as a human being, with nothing but pure, radiant and ever-glorious humanity running through your veins and the world shall once again begin to bow before our sweet land of liberty, not out of fear, but out of genuine, non-conflicting and humane respect.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Build Bridges not Walls: In the name of Americana

“Abe Fields, in spite of his fever, felt pride in being a realistic American with the highest national income per head of population in the world, and the most comfortable standard of living since the beginning of evolution; the reptiles of the primeval sea could be proud of America, and the ancestor who had first crawled of his native mud, in a desperate effort
to become a man, might now sleep in peace— he had succeeded. His name should be venerated in every American school; he was the real pioneer, the father of free enterprise, of the spirit of initiative, of all those who dared, who risked, of all that had led to the stupendous material progress of the United States.”
― Romain Gary, The Roots of Heaven

“It would be reassuring to presume that publicly casting oneself as a "good guy," specifically in regard to [American] Indians, is a harmless action without complicated side effects, as if society is not largely a system of complicated side effects set into motion by the actions of individuals.”
― Timothy H. Ives, Stones of Contention

“In explaining his shift away from Maoist economics, Deng Xiao Ping, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, described his market-oriented changes as "socialism with Chinese characteristics."
Today, American businesses, as well as the media and academic establishments that serve them, increasingly embrace what can best be described as "Chinese capitalism with American characteristics.”
― Joel Kotkin, The Rise of Corporate-State Tyranny

“If u want ppl 2 deliver u groceries & goods but don't want to hold the corporations they work for accountable for PPE, thriving wages, hazard pay, & taxes, you're exploiting cheap labor for your own safety. We won't survive on exploitation. We only survive through solidarity.

(4/1/2020 on Twitter)”
― Nikkita Oliver

“My goal with 'Slowpoke' is to present a solidly-written piece of humor that usually entails some form of social or political commentary exposing distinctly ludicrous aspects of American life.

(2002 interview in Attitude)”
― Jen Sorensen

“When Hammett turns to the respectable world, the world of respectable society, of affluence and influence, of open personal and political power, he finds only more of the same. The respectability of respectable American society is as much a fiction and a fraud as the phony respectable society manufactured by the criminals. Indeed, he unwaveringly represents the world of crime as a reproduction in both structure and detail of the modern capitalist society it depends on, preys off, and is part of. He not only continually juxtaposes and connects the ambiguously fictional worlds of art and writing with the fraudulently fictional worlds of society; he connects them, juxtaposes them, and sees them in dizzying and baffling interaction... It is into this bottomlessly equivocal, endlessly fraudulent and brutally acquisitive world that Hammett precipitates the Op.”
― Steven Marcus, The Continental Op