R. J. Cutler Quotes

They don't call it the Italian Dream or the English Dream. In America, there is the American Dream. It was the first place to give people of any social background their dream. You can achieve anything.

The American Dream means any person can achieve prosperity through hard work and ingenuity because there are no inherent barriers in our society.

Now, as a nation, we don't promise equal outcomes, but we were founded on the idea everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, you can make it. That's an essential promise of America. Where you start should not determine where you end up.

Economic inequality is less troubling if you live in a country where any child, no matter how humble his or her origins, can grow up to be president.

This is what America is about when it comes to understanding that it is equal opportunity versus equal achievement. Each and every one of us has the opportunity for greatness in this country.

The American dream, to me, means having the opportunity to achieve, because I don't think you should be guaranteed anything other than opportunity.

The supreme test of a democracy is the measure of equality of opportunity that it affords to its citizens to rise to the highest point of authority and position.

In America, our origins matter less than our destinations and that is what democracy is all about.

Obama is the splendid fruit of a meritocracy.

The beauty of a democracy is that you never can tell when a youngster is born what he is going to do with himself, and that no matter how humbly he is born, no matter where he is born, no matter what circumstances hamper him at the outset, he has got a chance to master the minds and lead the imaginations of the whole country.

The condition of your birth doesn't determine the outcome of your life. This is America.

This is the place where anybody - like an African American kid raised by a single mom - can be president.

The essence of America - that which really unites us - is not ethnicity, or nationality or religion - it is an idea - and what an idea it is: That you can come from humble circumstances and do great things.

The American Dream is about freedom.

The American dream is about freedom.

Barack Obama was not born into wealth or privilege, yet today his is president of these United States of America. Barack Obama has lived the American Dream. He has walked in our shoes.

Even in its third century, America is still the most meritocratic nation in the world.

In America any boy may become President, and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes.

What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to an ideal - that all of us are created equal, and all of us have the chance to make of our lives what we will.

Everyone must have a shot at the American Dream.

I'm an American. We've translated democracy and brotherhood and equality into enterprise and opportunity and success - and that's getting Americanised.

I don't believe that the American dream should be reserved for those who are born into the elite or somehow have been given an advantage over others. My growing-up experience is probably the most important thing that guides my priorities and my work today.

Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn't grow up can be vice president.

We are a nation of immigrants, a quilt of many colors, and we've managed over more than two centuries to create a way of life that allows for a reasonable degree of upward mobility, that prizes individual liberty, promotes freedom of religion and genuinely values equal rights for all citizens.

Our country has become the land of opportunity to those born without inheritance.