A Quote by Kurt Andersen

I'm comparing Americans to international peers in terms of GDP, educational system - the sort of benchmarks we used to designate a so-called developed society. In that sense, we are outliers. Are we suckers? Yes, but it's not just that. That puts too fine a point on what I am saying. We're not idiots and victims. It's about us as a people, compared with, say, Canadians, believing whatever we believe because, well, we're Americans, we feel this way without regard for what scholars and scientists say.

Kurt Andersen

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About Am Because Believe Believing Canadians Compared Comparing Developed Educational Educational System Feel Fine Gdp His Way Idiots International Just Outliers Peers People Point Puts Regard Say Saying Scholars Scientists Sense So-Called Society Sort System Terms Too Us Used Victims Way Well Whatever Without Yes

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Kurt Andersen
American - Writer
Born: August 22, 1954

I don't think every African-American or Latino have the same body type, but, yes, that's been one of the excuses ... saying that African-Americans are too muscular or just aren't lean enough. Usually they say, "Oh, they have flat feet so they just don't have the flexibility that it takes to create the line in a point shoe."

Misty Copeland

Wizards don't believe in gods in the same way that most people don't find it necessary to believe in, say, tables. They know they're there, they know they're there for a purpose, they'd probably agree that they have a place in a well-organised universe, but they wouldn't see the point of believing, of going around saying "O great table, without whom we are as naught." Anyway, either the gods are there whether you believe in them or not, or exist only as a function of the belief, so either way you might as well ignore the whole business and, as it were, eat off your knees.

Terry Pratchett

Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say “yes'.

Stephen Colbert

Not to get too grandiose about it, but I really believe I'm saying things a lot of Americans want someone to say.

Ed Schultz

Obama wants to stand for a peaceful, generous, encompassing approach that would bring all Americans, but not just Americans, the whole of international society, together to advance civilization towards what we all understand is necessary to advance. Because of that he's being subjected to very serious rejections from the reactionary portion of the system, which, unfortunately, is the dominant portion.

Gilberto Gil

I am convinced most Americans - yes even white Americans - are committed to justice and equality for all people. I am convinced that most Americans are disgusted and even ashamed that Nazism is alive and well in this country that fought to defeat its evil ideology.

Erwin McManus

Let us stop saying 'white Americans' and 'colored Americans,' let us try once and for all saying... Americans. Let human beings be equal on Earth as in Heaven.

Josephine Baker

I used to believe that you have to say yes to every opportunity that comes your way in order to succeed in life. Now I realize that the rarely-talked-about secret to success (and sanity) is recognizing when it makes more sense to say no.

Ana Kasparian

There are too many African-Americans with too much money for us to have to go to anybody else for anything in terms of schools, in terms of scholarships, in terms of entrepreneurship, in terms of moving us along as a group to that place where we should be as a people.

James Avery

I am libertarian, and Americans generally are, more than, say, Canadians and Australians.

Joel Salatin

Well, I'd say that I'm mostly drawn to people who are genuine and willing to take a step to the unknown. So when I play with these people, usually there's this sense of that 'yes, we are doing it together right at this moment without any agenda' feeling which is so exciting! It means that there is this sense of trust, that whatever I throw in the music that's happening, they will make it work and send something to work with in my direction. Hopefully they feel the same about me.

Okkyung Lee

I regularly see constituents, speak to people who feel let down by the justice system quite fundamentally, and these are people who don't make the headlines. These are people who have felt that their sense - their grief, their sense of injustice has been compounded by a system that just doesn't work, that just doesn't listen to victims, that effectively disempowers them all too often.

Nick Xenophon

The hope with Tipping Point was it would help the reader understand that real change was possible. With Blink, I wanted to get people to take the enormous power of their intuition seriously. My wish with Outliers is that it makes us understand how much of a group project success is. When outliers become outliers it is not just because of their own efforts. It's because of the contributions of lots of different people and lots of different circumstances.

Malcolm Gladwell

I do not mean to imply that television news deliberately aims to deprive Americans of a coherent, contextual understanding of their world. I mean to say that when news is packaged as entertainment, that is the inevitable result. And in saying that the television news show entertains but does not inform, I am saying something far more serious than that we are being deprived of authentic information. I am saying we are losing our sense of what it means to be well informed.

Neil Postman

I talk about my dad and the American dream, and I just want to say to Americans how fascinated we are by America. We would love Americans to look at the rest of the world that way sometimes.

Gad Elmaleh

Americans, more than most people, believe that history is the result of individual decisions to implement conscious intentions. For Americans, more than most people, history has been that.... This sense of openness, of possibility and autonomy, has been a national asset as precious as the topsoil of the Middle West. But like topsoil, it is subject to erosion; it requires tending. And it is not bad for Americans to come to terms with the fact that for them too, history is a story of inertia and the unforeseen.

George Will

A Quote by Kurt Andersen

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