“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.” KnowsWaySelfEternalPrisonStringsSimileMazesHyperbole Author:Lewis H. Lapham
“Further strengthenings of the self-centered instinct for survival recruit even greater numbers of people into some sort of ring of fellowship (church or gender, red state or blue) by populating the terra incognita outside the ring with enough barbarians to verify the existence of a civilization within--to define the preferred stock by what, as all good people agree, it decidedly is not.” PeopleSelfStatesEnoughChurchNumbersExistenceGreaterCivilizationSurvivalRedAgreeBlueInstinctGenderRingsGood PeopleFellowshipSelf CenteredBarbariansStrengtheningRecruitVerifyPreferred Stock Author:Lewis H. Lapham
“We need not seek our own best selves, and in the meantime we inoculate ourselves against the viruses of age and idealism, which, as the advertising agencies well know, depress sales and sour the feasts of consumption.” KnowsNeedsWellsSelfAgeAdvertisingAgencyConsumptionDepressingIdealismVirusesSourAdvertising AgenciesBest Self Author:Lewis H. Lapham
“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
“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 Source: High Technology and Human Freedom
“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
“I begin to understand that failure is its own reward. It is in the effort to close the distance between the work imagined and the work achieved wherein it is to be found that the ceaseless labor is the freedom of play, that what’s at stake isn’t a reflection in the mirror of fame but the escape from the prison of the self.” SelfPlayFoundEffortFameReflectionLaborMirrorsDistancePrisonRewardsStakes Author:Lewis H. Lapham
