Your grandparents came of age in the Great Depression, when everyday life was about deprivation and sacrifice, when the economic conditions of the time were so grave and so unrelenting it would have been easy enough for the American dream to fade away.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the resilience of those who lived through the Great Depression and their determination to pursue the American Dream despite hardships.
Tom Brokaw reflects on the struggles faced by the previous generation during the Great Depression. He emphasizes how this challenging era could have obliterated the American Dream, yet many persevered through deprivation and sacrifice, showcasing immense resilience and fortitude. It serves as a reminder of the strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity.
In practice
During a speech about overcoming obstacles, one could reference this quote to illustrate the historical context of resilience.
The WWII generation shares so many common values: duty, honor, country, personal responsibility and the marriage vow " For better or for worse--it was the last generation in which, broadly speaking, marriage was a commitment and divorce was not an option
While Pickstown may not be what it once was, it still is framed by the natural beauty of the ancient river, the sweep of the Great Plains, and the long, unbroken shoreline of the lake behind the dam. It gave me a 19th-century childhood in a modern mid-20th-century town, and for that I will always be grateful.
I am simply the most conspicuous part of a large, thoroughly dedicated and professional staff that extends from just behind these cameras, across this country and around the world, in too many instances, in places of grave danger and personal hardship. They're family to me.
I had good care going. I had Meredith and the family. And I didn't want to become the object of some kind of pity, most of all. I didn't want to show up on the Internet, 'Tom Brokaw has cancer.'
Heroes are people who rise to the occasion and slip quietly away.
It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced.
There's a tendency when we write history to do it with the power of hindsight and then assume almost god-like knowledge that nobody living through history has.
Apart from the intrinsic interest of the complex system of beliefs the Puritans carried with them, their lives give a clue to what it meant at the beginning to be American. And the level of scholarship dealing with them has reached a point where it can address the human condition itself.
There are two kinds of man: the ones who make history and the ones who endure it.
Never to forget the Holocaust was not only against Jews. It was mostly against Jews but it was also against homosexuals, gypsies and, let's not forget, people with disability.
Some of the most moving experiences I've had are just in black churches in the South, during the Civil Rights Movement, where people were getting beaten, killed, really struggling for the most elementary rights.
Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.