Mary Antin
Mary Antin
Mary Antinwas an American author and immigration rights activist. She is best known for her 1912 autobiography The Promised Land, an account of her emigration and subsequent Americanization...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth24 February 1909
CountryRussian Federation
morning school pride
The apex of my civic pride and personal contentment was reached on the bright September morning when I entered the public school.
spiritual mother pain
Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth.
patriotic pyramids honor
[I began to unload] the pyramid of honors, civic and literary, which had been heaped on me by the headlong process of rewarding a popular success. One day, I sat down and wrote a wholesale lot of letters of resignation. When I finished, I didn't belong to a single authors club or patriotic society. I was myself again, whatever that was.
community may scholar
There is never a Jewish community without its scholars, but where Jews may not be both intellectuals and Jews, they prefer to remain Jews.
bed confession autobiography
A proper autobiography is a death-bed confession.
men unfinished-work yesterday
A proper autobiography is a death-bed confession. A true man finds so much work to do that he has no time to contemplate his yesterdays; for to-day and to-morrow are here, with their impatient tasks. The world is so busy, too, that it cannot afford to study any man's unfinished work; for the end may prove it a failure, and the world needs masterpieces.
eye progress facts
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 eyes. He must take his family with him as he rises.
father tin-cans cooking
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 tin cans that had printing all over them.
birthday house police
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.
giving-up memories drinking
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 trees, cool skies, and all, than to lose my images of suppers eaten on Sabbath evenings at the end of those walks.
world may born
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 world, if we choose.
struggle school writing
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 follow a conversation or lecture; but he never learned to write correctly; and his pronunciation remains extremely foreign to this day.
real fall errors
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 cry out that the universe is falling to pieces, if any one but lift a finger to replace the error by truth.
mom mother spiritual
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, in those who are attentive to their own inner life, are slow and exceedingly painful. Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth.