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Lewis H. Lapham

Lewis H. Lapham Quotes

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Famous Lewis H. Lapham Quotes

“It is no accident that banks resemble temples, preferably Greek, and that the supplicants who come to perform the rites of deposit and withdrawal instinctively lower their voices into the registers of awe. Even the most junior tellers acquire within weeks of their employment the officiousness of hierophants tending an eternal flame.”

VoiceWeekEternalAccidentsEmploymentGreekFlamesAcquireAweTemplesBankingJuniorsBankersRegisterRiteWithdrawalDepositsBankers And Banks
Book:Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion
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“Leadership consists not in degrees of technique but in traits of character; it requires moral rather than athletic or intellectual effort, and it imposes on both leader and follower alike the burdens of self-restraint.”

SelfCharacterLeadershipEffortLeaderMoralMoralityIntegrityDegreesIntellectualBurdenTechniqueFollowersTraitsRestraintAthleticGreat LeaderBeing A LeaderSelf RestraintFuture LeadersIntegrity And CharacterIntegrity CharacterMoral IntegrityMoral Leadership
Book:High Technology and Human Freedom
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“Unlike any other business in the United States, sports must preserve an illusion of perfect innocence. The mounting of this illusion defines the purpose and accounts for the immense wealth of American sports. It is the ceremony of innocence that the fans pay to see - not the game or the match or the bout, but the ritual portrayal of a world in which time stops and all hope remains plausible, in which everybody present can recover the blameless expectations of a child, where the forces of light always triumph over the powers of darkness.”

WorldChildrenStatesLightPurposeGamesForceSportsWealthPerfectUnitedBusinessPayDarknessUnited StatesFansIllusionExpectationsAccountsRemainsInnocenceTriumphPreservesMotivational SportsRitualImmenseCeremonyPlausiblePortrayalBlameless
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“Money is like fire, an element as little troubled by moralizing as earth, air and water. Men can employ it as a tool or they can dance around it as if it were the incarnation of a god. Money votes socialist or monarchist, finds a profit in pornography or translations from the Bible, commissions Rembrandt and underwrites the technology of Auschwitz. It acquires its meaning from the uses to which it is put.”

IfsMenLittlesUseEarthWaterMoneyTechnologyFireAirElementsToolsVoteProfitAcquireSocialistPornographyTranslationsIncarnationAuschwitzAir And WaterMoralizing
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“We might make a public moan in the newspapers about the decay of conscience, but in private conversation, no matter what crimes a man may have committed or how cynically he may have debased his talent or his friends, variations on the answer Yes, but I did it for the money, satisfy all but the most tiresome objections.”

MenMayMatterMightAnswersMoneyTalentCrimeConversationConscienceNo Matter WhatCommittedNewspapersDecayVariationObjectionsTiresome
Book:Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion
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“The genius of capitalism consists precisely in its lack of morality. Unless he is rich enough to hire his own choir, a capitalist is a fellow who, by definition, can ill afford to believe in anything other than the doctrine of the bottom line. Deprive a capitalist of his God-given right to lie and cheat and steal, and the poor sap stands a better than even chance of becoming one of the abominable wards of the state from whose grimy fingers the Reagan Administration hopes to snatch the ark of democracy.”

BelieveWarStatesEnoughLyingGivenLinesChancePoorDemocracyRichGeniusBecomingMoralityCapitalismFellowsFingersBottomIllDefinitionsStealingDoctrineAdministrationCapitalistCheatBottom LineChoirSapArkBecoming One
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what's good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”

KnowsMenCountryNamesIndividualExistenceCompanyCareersIdentityHe ManPoliticianInstitutionsProofLawyerExecutivesPensionNbcIbm
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“Among all the emotions, the rich have the least talent for love. It is possible to love one's dog, dress or duck-shooting hat, but a human being presents a more difficult problem. The rich might wish to experience feelings of affection, but it is almost impossible to chip away the enamel of their narcissism. They take up all the space in all the mirrors in the house. Their children, who represent the most present and therefore the most annoying claim on their attention, usually receive the brunt of their irritation.”

LoveHumansChildrenFeelingsProblemMightHouseWishDifficultHuman BeingsSpaceEmotionAttentionRichImpossibleTalentDogClaimsMirrorsDressesAffectionShootingHatsAnnoyingDucksNarcissismChipsIrritationDifficult Problems
Book:Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion
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“Most of the ladies and gentlemen who mourn the passing of the nation's leaders wouldn't know a leader if they saw one. If they had the bad luck to come across a leader, they would find out that he might demand something from them, and this impertinence would put an abrupt and indignant end to their wish for his return.”

IfsKnowsEndsMightNationsWishLeaderSawsReturnDemandLuckPassingPassingsGentlemanMournBad LuckLadies And GentlemenIndignantImpertinence
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”

WorldHas BeensMadeSometimesStatesMomentsShowsFormPassionBlackUnitedRoomsPayUnited StatesSceneOne DayThirdsLawyerFortyPregnantThreateningBlack WomenAccompanyThird WorldElevatorsReception
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“Except in a few well-publicized instances (enough to lend credence to the iconography painted on the walls of the media), the rigorous practice of rugged individualism usually leads to poverty, ostracism and disgrace. The rugged individualist is too often mistaken for the misfit, the maverick, the spoilsport, the sore thumb.”

WellsEnoughPainPovertyPracticeMediaWallIndividualityInstanceIndividualismMistakenDisgraceThumbsMisfitsRuggedMaverickCredenceIconographyOstracismRugged Individualism
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“The national distrust of the contemplative temperament arises less from an innate Philistinism than from a suspicion of anything that cannot be counted, stuffed, framed or mounted over the fireplace in the den.”

FireAriseContemplationSuspicionDistrustTemperamentInnateFramedContemplativeDensFireplaces
Book:Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion
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“A certain kind of rich man afflicted with the symptoms of moral dandyism sooner or later comes to the conclusion that it isn't enough merely to make money. He feels obliged to hold views, to espouse causes and elect Presidents, to explain to a trembling world how and why the world went wrong.”

MenWorldFeelsKindEnoughCertainCausesPresidentViewsMoneyMoralRichConclusionComicMaking MoneySooner Or LaterSymptomsObligedTremblingRich ManDandyism
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“Seeing is believing, and if an American success is to count for anything in the world it must be clothed in the raiment of property. As often as not it isn't the money itself that means anything; it is the use of money as the currency of the soul.”

IfsWorldBelieveMeanSoulUseMoneySeeingPropertyCurrencySeeing Is BelievingAmerican Success
Book:Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion
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“Talk about the flag or drugs or crime (never about race or class or justice) and follow the yellow brick road to the wonderful land of consensus. In place of honest argument among consenting adults the politicians substitute a lullaby for frightened children: the pretense that conflict doesn't really exist, that we have achieved the blessed state in which we no longer need politics.”

NeedsChildrenStatesPoliticsJusticeRaceClassWonderfulLandHonestCrimePoliticianDrugConflictAdultsArgumentBlessedSubstitutesFrightenedYellowFlagsBricksConsensusPretenseLullabyYellow Brick RoadBrick Roads
Book:Hotel America: Scenes in the Lobby of the Fin-de-siècle
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“The future turns out to be something that you make instead of find. It isn't waiting for your arrival, either with an arrest warrant or a band, nor is it any further away than the next sentence, the next best guess, the next sketch for the painting of a life portrait that might become a masterpiece. The future is an empty canvas or a blank sheet of paper, and if you have the courage of your own thought and your own observation, you can make of it what you will.”

IfsLifeInspirationalMightTurnsNextWaitingPaintingBandPaperEmptySentencesObservationBlankCanvasPortraitsSheetsMasterpieceArrivalsWarrantsEmpty Canvas
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“From authors whom I read more than once I learn to value the weight of words and to delight in their meter and cadence -- in Gibbon's polyphonic counterpoint and Guedalla's command of the subjunctive, in Mailer's hyperbole and Dillard's similes, in Twain's invectives and burlesques with which he set the torch of his ferocious wit to the hospitality tents of the world's colossal humbug . . . I know no other way out of what is both the maze of the eternal present and the prison of the self except with a string of words.”

KnowsWorldWaySelfValuesEternalWeightPrisonDelightWitCommandStringsHospitalitySimileTorchesTentsMeterMazesColossalCadenceHumbugHyperbole
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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