Is it possible that nobody has ever known that there never has been a completely civilized man, and won’t be for another thousand years?
SINCLAIR LEWISAs 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.
More Sinclair Lewis Quotes
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In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any other decent businessman.
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There are so many people in the world who are eager to do for you things that you do not wish done, provided only that you will do for them things that you don’t wish to do.
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The greatest mystery about a human being is not his reaction to sex or praise, but the manner in which he contrives to put in twenty-four hours a day. It is this which puzzles the longshoreman about the clerk, the Londoner about the bushman.
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Sure of itself, it bullies other civilizations, as a traveling salesman in a brown derby conquers the wisdom of China and tacks advertisements of cigarettes over arches for centuries dedicated to the sayings of Confucius.
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The one thing that can be more disconcerting than intelligent hatred is demanding love.
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The world and all its wisdom is but a booby, blundering school-boy that needs management and could be managed.
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I, being a revolutionist, know exactly what I want — and what I want now is a drink.
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Winter is not a season, it’s an occupation.
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Upon this theology he rarely pondered. The kernel of his practical religion was that it was respectable, and beneficial to one’s business, to be seen going to services; that the church kept the Worst Elements from being still worse.
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NOW is a fact that cannot be dodged.
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It’s one of our favorite American myths that broad plains necessarily make broad minds, and high mountains make high purpose.
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An it isn’t so much that the church is in bondage to Big Business and doctrines as laid down by millionaires – though a lot of churches are that, too.
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I have faith in Faith, I have reverence for all true Reverence.
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Think how much better it is to criticize conventional customs if you yourself live up to them, scrupulously.
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Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on.
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Fine, large, meaningless, general terms like romance and business can always be related. They take the place of thinking, and are highly useful to optimists and lecturers.
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Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn “reasonable” and become your enemies.
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People read fiction for emotion-not information
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It is the irritation of getting tickets, packing, finding trains, lying in bouncing berths, washing without water, digging out passports, and fighting through customs.
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That nation is proudest and noblest and most exalted which has the greatest number of really great men.
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Winter is not a season in the North Middlewest; it is an industry.
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Except for half a dozen in each town the citizens are proud of that achievement of ignorance which is so easy to come by.
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With your great experience, don’t you honest, cross-your-heart, think that perhaps-just maybe-when a country has gone money-mad, like all our labor unions and workmen, with their propaganda to hoist income taxes.
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We’d get sick on too many cookies, but ever so much sicker on no cookies at all.
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Thus Carol hit upon the tragedy of old age, which is not that it is less vigorous than youth, but that it is not needed by youth.
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In fact, the whole thing about prohibition is this: it isn’t the initial cost, it’s the humidity.
SINCLAIR LEWIS