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
running past two
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, if only I do not have to remember too much. A long past vividly remembered is like a heavy garment that clings to your limbs when you would run.
children heart noses
You went up to be examined with the other Jewish children, your heart heavy about that matter of your nose.
children noses sides
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.
girl children school
There was one public school for boys, and one for girls, but Jewish children were admitted in limited numbers - only ten to a hundred; and even the lucky ones had their troubles.
running women adventure
One current of continuity runs underneath all the abortive phases of my life. From childhood on I have been obliged to drop anything I was doing to run after any man who seemed to know a little more than I did about God . . . I most want to write about: how a modern woman has sought the face of God-not the name nor the fame but the face [ital] of God-and what adventures came to meet her on this ancient human path.
running past long
A long past vividly remembered is like a heavy garment that clings to your limbs when you would run.
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.
past
It is not that I belong to the past, but the past that belongs to me.
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.