Famous quotes containing the words american and/or democracy:
“Smoking ... is downright dangerous. Most people who smoke will eventually contract a fatal disease and die. But they dont brag about it, do they? Most people who ski, play professional football or drive race cars, will not dieat least not in the actand yet they are the ones with the glamorous images, the expensive equipment and the mythic proportions. Why this should be I cannot say, unless it is simply that the average American does not know a daredevil when he sees one.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)
“Perhaps our national ambition to standardize ourselves has behind it the notion that democracy means standardization. But standardization is the surest way to destroy the initiative, to benumb the creative impulse above all else essential to the vitality and growth of democratic ideals.”
—Ida M. Tarbell (18571944)