American Quotes

The real fight is about what should be in the marketplace and what should not. Should education be a marketable commodity? Should healthcare?

I used to work a lot on food issues and every time somebody predicted that production would be inadequate they got egg on their face a year or two later.

Having enough to eat, being able to educate your children, have reasonably stable employment, and being able to live in a society which isn't collapsing around you-all of these things have been generally eroded.

Debt is such a powerful tool, it is such a useful tool, it's much better than colonialism ever was because you can keep control without having an army, without having a whole administration.

How do we get democracy at the international level? That's our problem. and it's essentially the same problem people faced in the 18th Century when they tried to get democracy nationally. Now we need it internationally.

What's the problem with 'never?' It keeps you from trying. It ensures that you will fail. End of story.

There's a fine line between being sweet and innocent and being a tough broad.

The most popular labor-saving device is still money.

Often I used my gut instinct to ask the questions and get the answers I thought the audience wanted to hear. Sometimes the interviewees said things that surprised even them.

My unanticipated success as a sportscaster is a perfect example of the importance of saying yes to yourself, even when you are uncertain.

Banish the words 'I can't' from your vocabulary. Remember: If 'can't' equals 'won't', 'can' equals 'will.'

Crafts make us feel rooted, give us a sense of belonging and connect us with our history. Our ancestors used to create these crafts out of necessity, and now we do them for fun, to make money and to express ourselves.

Life is what you make it: If you snooze, you lose; and if you snore, you lose more.

The methods by which a trade union can alone act, are necessarily destructive; its organization is necessarily tyrannical.

The march of invention has clothed mankind with powers of which a century ago the boldest imagination could not have dreamt.

The man who gives me employment, which I must have or suffer, that man is my master, let me call him what I will.

Progressive societies outgrow institutions as children outgrow clothes.

Poorly paid labor is inefficient labor, the world over.

Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a light and a power.

How can a man be said to have a country when he has not right of a square inch of it.

Capital is a result of labor, and is used by labor to assist it in further production. Labor is the active and initial force, and labor is therefore the employer of capital.

Man is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied.

There is danger in reckless change, but greater danger in blind conservatism.

That which is unjust can really profit no one; that which is just can really harm no one.

He who sees the truth, let him proclaim it, without asking who is for it or who is against it.

How many men are there who fairly earn a million dollars?

What has destroyed every previous civilization has been the tendency to the unequal distribution of wealth and power.

Writing is no dying art form in America because most published writers here accept the wisdom and the necessity of encouraging the talent that follows in their footsteps.

Lots of people want to have written; they don't want to write. In other words, they want to see their name on the front cover of a book and their grinning picture on the back. But this is what comes at the end of a job, not at the beginning.

It is the job of the novelist to touch the reader.