Quotessence
Home / Authors / Lewis H. Lapham
Lewis H. Lapham

Lewis H. Lapham Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsPeopleStatesWorldKnowsDemocracySelfChildrenGovernmentMightMoneyRichWayWellsMenStoriesUnitedUnited StatesWarArt

Famous Lewis H. Lapham Quotes

“The mystical nature of American consumption accounts for its joylessness. We spend a great deal of time in stores, but if we don't seem to take much pleasure in our buying, it's because we're engaged in the acts of sacrifice and self-definition. Abashed in the presence of expensive merchandise, we recognize ourselves . . . as suppliants admitted to a shrine.”

IfsSelfSeemsPleasureDealsSacrificeAccountsDefinitionsStoresEngagedExpensiveBuyingConsumptionMysticalShrinesMerchandise
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image