Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of mo...ving society, but they have no resting-place without it. They may be men of a certain experience and discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not governed by policy and expediency.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In full view of his television audience, he preached a new religion--or a new form of Christianity--based on faith in financial mi...racles and in a Heaven here on earth with a water slide and luxury hotels. It was a religion of celebrity and showmanship and fun, which made a mockery of all puritanical standards and all canons of good taste. Its standard was excess, and its doctrines were tolerance and freedom from accountability.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is as absurd to say that [due to motherhood] all women shall be denied the suffrage, as it would be to deny all men the suffrag...e, because some are liable, periodically, to inflammatory rheumatism, delirium tremens, or financial failure.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Forced labor as a punishment is limited as to time and intensity. The convict retains his rights over his body; he is not absolute...ly tortured and he is not absolutely dominated. Banishment banishes only from one part of the world to another part of the world, also inhabited by human beings; it does not exclude from the human world altogether. Throughout history slavery has been an institution within a social order; slaves were not, like concentration-camp inmates, withdrawn from the sight and hence the protection of their fellow-men; as instruments of labor they had a definite price and as property a definite value. The concentration-camp inmate has no price, because he can always be replaced; nobody knows to whom he belongs, because he is never seen. From the point of view of normal society he is absolutely superfluous.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What people don't realize is that intimacy has its conventions as well as ordinary social intercourse. There are three cardinal ru...les--don't take somebody else's boyfriend unless you've been specifically invited to do so, don't take a drink without being asked, and keep a scrupulous accounting in financial matters.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The multiplication of individual sects should not fool us: the important point is that the whole of America is preoccupied with th...e sect as a moral institution, with its immediate demand for beatification, its material efficacity, its compulsion for justification, and doubtless also with its madness and frenzy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Everyone has taste, yet it is more of a taboo subject than sex or money. The reason for this is simple: claims about your attitude...s to or achievements in the carnal and financial arenas can be disputed only by your lover and your financial advisers, whereas by making statements about your taste you expose body and soul to terrible scrutiny. Taste is a merciless betrayer of social and cultural attitudes. Thus, while anybody will tell you as much (and perhaps more than) you want to know about their triumphs in bed and at the bank, it is taste that gets people's nerves tingling.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One learns quite easily to identify the rich person who is making a career out of dangling the carrot; of being fawned on by insti...tutions eager for his (or, more often, her) money. It is not very productive to "cultivate" them. I associated with many, and developed great compassion for rich people who suspect that they are in demand only because they are a potential source of income to some cause or institution. Whether it's true or not, their suspicions isolate them from all save a handful of old and trusted friends, turn them sour, make it difficult for them to accept new friends at face value, and leave them with little attraction other than their money.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »