Lewis H. Lapham Quotes

By the word "liberty" they meant liberty for property, not liberty for persons.

Seeking the invisible through the imagery of the visible, the Americans never can get quite all the way to the end of the American dream.

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.

Chapter 10, Envoi, p. 242

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

Once having proclaimed our loyalty to the abstract idea that all men are created equal, we do everything in our power to prove ourselves unequal. Among the world's peoples, none other belongs to so many clubs, associations, committees and secret societies.

The world goes on as before, and it turns out that nobody else seems to to notice the unbearable lightness of being.

The rich, like well brought up children, are meant to be seen, not heard.

Chapter 10, Envoi, p. 237

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.

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.