Mary Antin Quotes

25 quotes in 486 categories

• We are not born all at once, but by bits. The body first, and the spirit later; and the birth and growth of the spirit,…
• Among the liveliest of my memories are those of eating and drinking; and I would sooner give up some of my delightful remembered walks, green…
• On a royal birthday every house must fly a flag, or the owner would be dragged to a police station and be fined twenty-five rubles.
• The apex of my civic pride and personal contentment was reached on the bright September morning when I entered the public school.
• It is only that my illusion is more real to me than reality. And so do we often build our world on an error, and…
• A long past vividly remembered is like a heavy garment that clings to your limbs when you would run.
• There was one public school for boys, and one for girls, but Jewish children were admitted in limited numbers - only ten to a hundred;…
• You heard on all sides that the brightest Jewish children were turned down if the examining officers did not like the turn of their noses.
• You went up to be examined with the other Jewish children, your heart heavy about that matter of your nose.
• It is painful to be consciously of two worlds. The Wandering Jew in me seeks forgetfulness. I am not afraid to live on and on,…
• A little instruction in the elements of chartography—a little practice in the use of the compass and the spirit level, a topographical map of the…
• The czar always got his dues, no matter if it ruined a family.
• It is not that I belong to the past, but the past that belongs to me.
• Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth.
• Such creatures of accident are we, liable to a thousand deaths before we are born. But once we are here, we may create our own…
• His struggle for a bare living left him no time to take advantage of the public evening school. In time he learned to read, to…
• The first meal was an object lesson of much variety. My father produced several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking, from little…
• A characteristic thing about the aspiring immigrant is the fact that he is not content to progress alone. Solitary success is imperfect success in his…
• As we moved along in a little procession, I was delighted with the illumination of the streets. So many lamps, and they burned until morning,…
• If education, culture, the higher life were shining things to be worshiped from afar, he had still a means left whereby he could draw one…

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