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47b9c8f
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Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on.
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looking-down
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Sinclair Lewis |
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7b406ab
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He loved the people just as much as he feared and detested persons.
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misanthropy
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Sinclair Lewis |
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ac95d48
|
The Senator was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his "ideas" almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store. Certainly there was nothing exhilarating in the actual words of his speeches, nor anything convincing in his philosophy. His political platforms were only wings of a windmill."
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fascism
plutocracy
politics
right-wing-politics
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Sinclair Lewis |
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dfec73f
|
It isn't what you earn but how spend it that fixes your class.
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priorities
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Sinclair Lewis |
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bdbe281
|
I think perhaps we want a more conscious life. We're tired of drudging and sleeping and dying. We're tired of seeing just a few people able to be individualists. We're tired of always deferring hope till the next generation. We're tired of hearing politicians and priests and cautious reformers... coax us, 'Be calm! Be patient! Wait! We have the plans for a Utopia already made; just wiser than you.' For ten thousand years they've said that. ..
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Sinclair Lewis |
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6e4059d
|
The Maker of the universe with stars a hundred thousand light-years apart was interested, furious, and very personal about it if a small boy played baseball on Sunday afternoon.
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humor
religion
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Sinclair Lewis |
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13b4d3e
|
It is one of the major tragedies that nothing is more discomforting than the hearty affection of the Old Friends who never were friends.
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humor
misanthropy
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Sinclair Lewis |
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33b9dfe
|
You're so earnest about morality that I hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath.
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Sinclair Lewis |
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84e76b4
|
They were staggered to learn that a real tangible person, living in Minnesota, and married to their own flesh-and-blood relation, could apparently believe that divorce may not always be immoral; that illegitimate children do not bear any special and guaranteed form of curse; that there are ethical authorities outside of the Hebrew Bible; that men have drunk wine yet not died in the gutter; that the capitalistic system of distribution and th..
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Sinclair Lewis |
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cab7a3a
|
Whatever the misery, he could not regain contentment with a world which, once doubted, became absurd.
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discipleship
sin
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Sinclair Lewis |
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def2908
|
Most troubles are unnecessary. We have Nature beaten; we can make her grow wheat; we can keep warm when she sends blizzards. So we raise the devil just for pleasure--wars, politics, race-hatreds, labor-disputes.
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Sinclair Lewis |
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4b7cde8
|
Why are you so afraid of the word 'Fascism,' Doremus? Just a word--just a word! And might not be so bad, with all the lazy bums we got panhandling relief nowadays, and living on my income tax and yours--not so worse to have a real Strong Man, like Hitler or Mussolini--like Napoleon or Bismarck in the good old days--and have 'em really run the country and make it efficient and prosperous again. 'Nother words, have a doctor who won't take any..
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Sinclair Lewis |
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5659844
|
So much in a revolution is nothing but waiting.
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patience
|
Sinclair Lewis |
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223e4bb
|
No matter even if you are cold, I like you better than anybody in the world. One time I said that you were my soul. And that still goes. You're all the things that I see in a sunset when I'm driving in from the country, the things that I like but can't make poetry of.
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Sinclair Lewis |
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88aed0d
|
realized that this country has gone so flabby that any gang daring enough and unscrupulous enough, and smart enough not to seem illegal, can grab hold of the entire government and have all the power and applause and salutes, all the money and palaces and willin' women they want.
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Sinclair Lewis |
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5c50614
|
NOW is a fact that cannot be dodged.
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procrastination
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Sinclair Lewis |
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82c9213
|
You," Said Dr. Yavitch, "are a middle-road liberal, and you haven't the slightest idea what you want. I, being a revolutionist, know exactly what I want -- and what I want now is a drink."
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Sinclair Lewis |
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06542a5
|
She was snatched back from a dream of far countries, and found herself on Main Street.
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Sinclair Lewis |
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efba6e4
|
But I do know that about ten times as many people find their lives dull, and unnecessarily dull, as ever admit it; and I do believe that if we busted out and admitted it sometimes, instead of being nice and patient and loyal for sixty years, and then nice and patient and dead for the rest of eternity, why, maybe, possibly, we might make life more fun.
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Sinclair Lewis |
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55fd8ff
|
Thus it came to him merely to run away was folly, because he could never run away from himself.
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Sinclair Lewis |
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ef54efc
|
Why, America's the only free nation on earth. Besides! Country's too big for a revolution. No, no! Couldn't happen here!
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Sinclair Lewis |
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c42f8da
|
He had, in fact, got everything from the church and Sunday School, except, perhaps, any longing whatever for decency and kindness and reason
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Sinclair Lewis |
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db703b3
|
Remember our war hysteria, when we called sauerkraut 'Liberty cabbage' and somebody actually proposed calling German measles 'Liberty measles'?
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Sinclair Lewis |
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ef7a4a0
|
It has not yet been recorded that any human being has gained a very large or permanent contentment from meditation upon the fact that he is better off than others.
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Sinclair Lewis |
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09cb444
|
The tyranny of this dictatorship isn't primarily the fault of Big Business, nor of the demagogues who do their dirty work. It's the fault of Doremus Jessup! Of all the conscientious, respectable, lazy-minded Doremus Jessups, who have let the demogogues wriggle in, without fierce enough protest." 14"
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|
Sinclair Lewis |
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4a144b8
|
I think perhaps we want a more conscientious life. We're tired of drudging and sleeping and dying. We're tired of always deferring hope to the next generation. We're tired of hearing the politicians and priests and cautious reformers (and the husbands!) coax us, 'Be calm! Be patient! Wait! We have plans for a Utopia already made; just give us a bit more time and we'll produce it; trust us; we're wiser than you.' For ten thousand years they'..
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|
Sinclair Lewis |
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fc89794
|
If travel were so inspiring and informing a business...then the wisest men in the world would be deck hands on tramp steamers, Pullman porters, and Mormon missionaries.
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travel
|
Sinclair Lewis |
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1bcad6b
|
If I ever hear that 'can't make an omelet' phrase again, I'll start doing a little murder myself! It's used to justify every atrocity under every despotism, Fascist or Nazi, or Communist or American labor war. Omelet! Eggs! By God, sir, men's souls and blood are not eggshells for tyrants to break!
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Sinclair Lewis |
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5ddb7a3
|
A country that tolerates evil means- evil manners, standards of ethics-for a generation, will be so poisoned that it never will have any good end.
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Sinclair Lewis |
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fe02578
|
The conspicuous fault of the Jeffersonian Party, like the personal fault of Senator Trowbridge, was that it represented integrity and reason, in a year when the electorate hungered for frisky emotions, for the peppery sensations associated, usually, not with monetary systems and taxation rates but with baptism by immersion in the creek, young love under the elms, straight whisky, angelic orchestras heard soaring down from the full moon, fea..
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drama
dramatic-politics
politicians
politics
|
Sinclair Lewis |
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fb8212e
|
Day on day he waited. So much of a revolution for so many people is nothing but waiting. That is one reason why tourists rarely see anything but contentment in a crushed population. Waiting, and its brother death, seem so contented.
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Sinclair Lewis |
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8f38842
|
The author says one character's definition of a classic is any book he'd heard of before he was thirty.
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Sinclair Lewis |
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4bac742
|
The cocktail filled him with a whirling exhilaration behind which he was aware of devastating desires--to rush places in fast motors, to kiss girls, to sing, to be witty. ... He perceived that he had gifts of profligacy which had been neglected. --chapter 8
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Sinclair Lewis |
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17ed059
|
I'm a middle-class intellectual. I'd never call myself any such a damn silly thing, but since you Reds coined it, I'll have to accept it. That's my class, and that's what I'm interested in. The proletarians are probably noble fellows, but I certainly do not think that the interests of the middle-class intellectuals and the proletarians are the same. They want bread. We want--well, all right, say it, we want cake!
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Sinclair Lewis |
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ad1291f
|
If that woman is on the side of the angels, then I have no choice; I must be on the side of the devil.
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|
Sinclair Lewis |
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3a1b3df
|
I was feeling rational and restless, which is horrible for watching movies
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lessons
life
lit
movies
quotes
restless
|
Sinclair Lewis |
|
002a33b
|
Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn "reasonable" and become your enemies, one quarter are afraid to stop and speak, and one quarter are killed and you die with them. But the blessed final quarter keep you alive."
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friendship
tyranny
|
Sinclair Lewis |
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02bdfb2
|
The men leaned back on their heels, put their hands in their trousers-pockets, and proclaimed their views with the booming profundity of a prosperous male repeating a thoroughly hackneyed statement about a matter of which he knows nothing whatever.
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Sinclair Lewis |
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6317821
|
What are these unheard of sins you condemn so much - and like so well?
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Sinclair Lewis |
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5f2b70c
|
In Floral Heights and the other prosperous sections of Zenith, especially in the "young married set," there were many women who had nothing to do. Though they had few servants, yet with gas stoves, electric ranges and dish-washers and vacuum cleaners, and tiled kitchen walls, their houses were so convenient that they had little housework, and much of their food came from bakeries and delicatessens. They had but two, one, or no children; and..
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Sinclair Lewis |
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600e404
|
There's no stronger bulwark of sound conservatism than the evangelical church, and no better place to make friends who'll help you to gain your rightful place in the community than in your own church-home!
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|
politics
status-quo
|
Sinclair Lewis |
|
514a881
|
Author sees the "congested idealism" of the generally discontent as reservoir that will support centralized power even while disagreeing with many specific provisions."
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discontent
|
Sinclair Lewis |
|
7ee008f
|
There were two things, they told Doremus, that distinguished this prairie Demosthenes. He was an actor of genius. There was no more overwhelming actor on the stage, in the motion pictures, nor even in the pulpit. He would whirl arms, bang tables, glare from mad eyes, vomit Biblical wrath from a gaping mouth; but he would also coo like a nursing mother, beseech like an aching lover, and in between tricks would coldly and almost contemptuousl..
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|
liberalism
plutocracy
right-wing-politics
|
Sinclair Lewis |
|
941635f
|
Babbitt knew that in this place of death Paul was already dead. And as he pondered on the train home something in his own self seemed to have died: a loyal and vigorous faith in the goodness of the world, a fear of public disfavor, a pride in success.
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Sinclair Lewis |