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Quote by 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.”

Quote by Lewis H. Lapham

Author

Lewis H. Lapham

Lewis H. Lapham is an American writer born on January 8, 1935. He is known for his distinctive literary style and profound insights into American society and politics. more

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“Usually when I drank too much, I could guess why I did so, the objective being to murder a state of consciousness that I didn't have the courage to sustain--a fear of heights, which sometimes during the carnival of the 1960s accompanied my attempts to transform the bourgeois journalist into an avant-garde novelist. The stepped-up ambition was a commonplace among the would-be William Faulkners of my generation; nearly always it resulted in commercial failure and literary embarrassment.”

“Tardiness is next to wickedness in a society relentless in its consumption of time as both a good and a service--as tweet and Instagram, film clip and sound bite, as sporting event, investment opportunity, Tinder hookup, and interest rate--its value measured not by its texture or its substance but by the speed of its delivery, a distinction apparent to Andy Warhol when he supposedly said that any painting that takes longer than five minutes to make is a bad painting.”

“Democracy is a difficult art of government, demanding of its citizens high ratios of courage and literacy, and at the moment we lack both the necessary habits of mind and a sphere of common reference.”

Mind Art Moments Government Difficult Common Democracy Habit Citizens Spheres Literacy Ratios Habits Of Mind

Book:Waiting for the Barbarians

Source: Waiting for the Barbarians

“We are a people captivated by the power and romance of metaphor, forever seeking the invisible through the image of the visible.”

People Romance Forever Metaphor Seeking Invisible Visible Captivated

Author:Lewis H. Lapham

“Let the rabbit of free enterprise out of its velveteen bag and too many people would have to be fired, too much idiocy exposed to the light of judgment or ridicule, too much vanity sacrificed to the fires of efficiency. Such a catastrophe obviously would threaten the American way of life, to say nothing of the belief in free markets.”

Source: Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion

“Since the eighteenth century the immense expansion of the worlds wealth has come about as a result of a correspondingly immense expansion of credit, which in turn has demanded increasingly stupendous suspensions of disbelief.”

World Turns Wealth Results Century Credit Immense Expansion Disbelief Suspension Suspension Of Disbelief

Author:Lewis H. Lapham

“The playing field is more sacred than the stock exchange, more blessed than Capital Hill or the vaults of Fort Knox. The diamond and the gridiron -- and, to a lesser degree, the court, the rink, the track, and the ring -- embody the American dream of Eden.”

Dream Fields Degrees Blessed Sacred Court Track Rings Hills Diamond American Dream Eden Playing Fields Forts Vaults Stock Exchange Gridiron

Book:Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion

Source: Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion

“The pose of innocence is as mandatory as the ability to eat banquet food and endure the scourging of the press.”

Ability Presses Endure Innocence Banquets

Book:Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion

Source: Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion

“The substitution of meaning accounts for the grasping of misers as well as the extravagance of spendthrifts. Karl Marx well understood this peculiar transformation of flesh into coin.”

Wells Understood Accounts Transformation Flesh Peculiar Coins Grasping Extravagance Misers Substitution Spendthrift

Author:Lewis H. Lapham

“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were.”