Joni Ernst Quotes

I am not a product of privilege, I am a product of opportunity

Nowhere in the world is presented a government of so much liberty and equality. To the humblest and poorest amongst us are held out the highest privileges and positions.

It doesn't matter where you're from. You can be from the hood or the suburbs. You can be poor with no education or a college graduate. No matter your background, you can win.

No matter where you're born in life or what the circumstances are when you're born, like your parents being poor or not connected to power, you have a chance in this country to go as far as your talent and your work will take you.

Imagine if your success in life is determined only by your guts, your hard work, and your willpower, and not by the wealth of your parents. I think it'll be a much more interesting world. I think this could change the way the planet is run.

I don't campaign for the end of the aristocracy or the upper classes; I don't really want to destroy anything at all. I just want more plurality.

America is a great country. We are so wealthy. But our one remaining challenge is to fulfill the potential of all our people. And the only way we can do that is to try to bring everybody together to a higher place.

I want to prove that you don't have to come from Oxford University or Rada - and you don't have to have parents that support you - to succeed.

We must restore the emotional relationship that people have to the idea of America, that no matter where you come from, no matter where you live, that you have access to the same opportunities that somebody who is born in privilege.

I was very lucky. My parents raised me in such a way that it never occurred to me that I wasn't equal.

Every American wants a clean slate, but nobody wants to lose what they've got.

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.

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.

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

Anything is possible for anyone in America.

In America, opportunity and equality are not a zero-sum game

To be prosperous is not to be superior, and should form no barrier between men. Wealth ought not to secure the prosperous the slightest consideration.

In a country where there is no privileged class, genius and industry may attain the highest honors.

If any one idea can justly be called the American idea, it is that a child's circumstances at birth should not determine the station in life that that child will occupy as an adult.

As Americans, I think we really believe that with the meritocracy that exists in our country, the equality of opportunity is so important to the foundation of our culture and our society.

Barack knows the American Dream because he's lived it, and he wants everyone in this country to have that same opportunity, no matter who we are or where we're from or what we look like or who we love.

Education levels the playing field, allowing everyone to compete.

What has always made our country special is that it doesn't matter where you come from; it matters where you're going. Our job is to make certain the pathways are open to both our boys and our girls.

I see social mobility and equality of opportunity as really successful Canadian values.