Lewis H. Lapham Quotes - Page 4

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• The state of perpetual emptiness is, of course, very good for business.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Emptiness, States, Very Good

  Lewis H. Lapham (1989). “Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion”

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• When we talk about the foreign, the question becomes one of us versus them. But in the end, is one just the opposite side of the other?

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Opposites, Sides, Ends

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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.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Leadership, Integrity, Character

  Lewis H. Lapham (1985). “High Technology and Human Freedom”

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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.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Love, Dog, Children

  Lewis H. Lapham (1989). “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.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  War, Lying, Believe

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• The figure of the enthusiast who has just discovered jogging or a new way to fix tofu can be said to stand or, more accurately, to tremble on the threshold of conversion, as the representative American

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Jogging, Tofu, Enthusiasm

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• Construed as a means instead of an end, history is the weapon with which we defend the future against the past.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Mean, Past, Weapons

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• The more prosperous and settled a nation, the more readily it tends to think of war as a regrettable accident; to nations less fortunate the chance of war presents itself as a possible bountiful friend.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  War, Thinking, Chance

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• As many as six out of ten American adults have never read a book of any kind, and the bulletins from the nation’s educational frontiers read like the casualty reports from a lost war.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  War, Educational, Book

  Lewis H. Lapham (2004). “Gag Rule: On the Suppression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy”, p.121, Penguin

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• Of what does politics consist except the making of imperfect decisions, many of them unjust and quite a few of them deadly?

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Decision, Political, Doe

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• Under the rules of a society that cannot distinguish between profit and profiteering, between money defined as necessity and money defined as luxury, murder is occasionally obligatory and always permissible.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Money, Luxury, Murder

  Lewis H. Lapham (1989). “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.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Money, Men, Views

  "Money And Class In America: Notes And Observations On Our Civil Religion" by Lewis H. Lapham, 1989.

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• Let the corporations do as they please -- pillage the environment, falsify their advertising, rig the securities markets -- and it is none of the federal government's business to interfere with the will of heaven.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Government, Heaven, Corporations

  Lewis H. Lapham (1997). “Waiting for the Barbarians”, p.17, Verso

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• It is the fear of death - 24/7 in every shade of hospital white and doomsday black--that sells the pharmaceutical, political, financial, film, and food product promising to make good the wish to live forever.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Death, White, Forever

  "The Death of American Exceptionalism - and of Me" by Lewis Lapham, www.motherjones.com. September 24, 2013.

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• About the presence of death and dying I don't remember the society in the 1950s being so skittish as it has since become. People still died at home, among relatives and friends, often in the care of a family physician. Death was still to be seen sitting in the parlor, hanging in a butcher shop, sometimes lying in the street.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Death, Lying, Home

  "Selling Death" by Lewis Lapham, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 24, 2013.

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• At this late stage in the history of American capitalism I'm not sure I know how much testimony still needs to be presented to establish the relation between profit and theft.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Needs, Profit, Stage

  Lewis H. Lapham (1989). “Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion”

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• More than illness or death, the American journalist fears standing alone against the whim of his owners or the prejudices of his audience. Deprive William Safire of the insignia of the New York Times, and he would have a hard time selling his truths to a weekly broadsheet in suburban Duluth.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Death, New York, Hard Times

  52 Copy quote

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