#american

In my opinion, it was chiefly owing to their deep contemplation in their silent retreats in the days of youth that the old Indian orators acquired the habit of carefully arranging their thoughts. They listened to the warbling of birds and noted the grandeur and the beauties of the forest. The majestic clouds—which appear like mountains of granite floating in the air—the golden tints of a summer evening sky, and the changes of nature, possessed a mysterious significance. All of this combined to furnish ample matter for reflection to the contemplating youth. ↗

— Francis Assikinack

#native-american-wisdom #nature #oratory #silence #wisdom

In response to my question about how we might rein in the empire, he said, "That's why I'm meeting with you. Only you in the United States can change it. Your government created this problem and your people must solve it. You've got to insist that Washington honor its commitment to democracy, even when deomcratically elected leaders nationalize your corrupting corporations. You must take control of your corporations and your government. The people of the United States have a great deal of power. You need to come to grips with this. There's no alternative. We in Brazil have our hands tied. So do the Venezeulans. And the Nigerians. It's up to you. ↗

— John Perkins

#corporations #empire #government #politics #change

What a fine fellow is Quincey! I believe in my heart of hearts that he suffered as much about Lucy’s death as any of us, but he bore himself through it like a moral Viking. If America can go on breeding men like that, she will be a power in the world indeed. ↗

— Bram Stoker

#courage #courage

Life moved, as inconstant and fickle as Wind Baby, frolicking, sleeping, weeping, but never truly still. Never solid or finished. Always like water flowing from one place to the next. Seed and fruit. Rain and drought, everything traveled in a gigantic circle, an eternal process of becoming something new. But we rarely saw it. Humans tended to see only frozen moments, not the flow of things. ↗

— Kathleen O'Neal Gear

#native-american-wisdom #death

With the snow piling up outside, the warm dry cabin hidden in its fold of the mountain felt like a safe haven indeed, though it had not been such for the people who had lived there. Soldiers had found them and made the cabin trailhead to a path of exile, loss, and death. But for a while that night, it was a place that held within its walls no pain nor even a vague memory collection of pain. ↗

— Charles Frazier

#native-americans #pain #death

The property is cursed. Death dwells here. These rivers run with the blood of those who came before you. Life may not trespass, and when it tries, it will surely be snuffed out. ↗

— Denise Daisy

#death

Harry had worked his way through the American Dream and come to the conclusion that is was composed of a good lunch and a deep red wine that could soar. ↗

— Colum McCann

#conclusions #food #red-wine #dreams

The American Dream is a constant reminder that America's true nature and distinctive grandeur is in promising the common man, thr man on the make, a better chance to succeed here than common men enjoy anywhere else on earth. Pursuing the American Dream, 9, 269 ↗

— Cal Jillson

#dreams

the American nation today is infantile so much as adolescent—that is ambivalent in its twin desire for both authoritarian structure and the end of parental hegemony ↗

— David Foster Wallace

#dreams

Now the line is: Forget the classics, concentrate on an education for the 21st century! Which apparently means knowing how to operate electronic devices and figure out a spreadsheet. That's not education, it's vocational training. What once were means seem to have become ends in education. And our more with-it "educators" shift with every passing wind, clutching at the latest gimmick the way drowning men do at straws. ↗

— Paul Greenberg

#demise #education #today #education