Sinclair Lewis Quotes

When fascism comes to the United States it will be wrapped in the American flag and will claim the name of 100-percent Americanism

I am convinced that everything that is worth while in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit, and that the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and silencing them forever.

Writers have a rare power not given to anyone else: we can bore people long after we are dead.

When facism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag.

I must say I'm not very fond of oratory that's so full of energy it hasn't any room for facts.

Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on.

The trouble with this country is that there are too many people going about saying, "The trouble with this country is...."

It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.

You have more people that love you than you know.

Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn "reasonable" and become your enemies, one quarter are afraid to speak, and one quarter are killed and you die with them. But the blessed final quarter keep you alive.

Fascism will come to America wrapped in a flag.

Love is the one thing that can really sure-enough lighten all of life's dark clouds.

Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country.

My objection to the church isn't that the preachers are cruel, hypocritical, actually wicked, though some of them are that, too - think of how many are arrested for selling fake stock, for seducing 14-year-old girls in orphanages under their care, for arson, for murder. 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. My chief objection is that 99% of sermons and Sunday School teachings are so agonizingly dull.

The most important part of living is not the living but the pondering upon it.

Cure the evils of Democracy by the evils of Fascism! Funny therapeutics! I've heard of their curing syphilis by giving the patient malaria, but I've never heard of their curing malaria by giving the patient syphilis.

There is no greater compliment to the Jews than the fact that the degree of their unpopularity is always the scientific measure of the cruelty and silliness of the regime under which they live.

Since dictating the Bible, and hiring a perfect race of ministers to explain it, God has never done much but creep around and try to catch us disobeying it.

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. We want our Utopia now — and we're going to try our hands at it.

Men die, but the plutocracy is immortal; and it is necessary that fresh generations should be trained to its service.

Sleep with me sleep with my dogs-

When audiences come to see us authors lecture, it is largely in the hope that we'll be funnier to look at than to read.

Life is hard and astonishingly complicated.... No one great reform will make it easy. Most of us who work -- or want to work -- will always have trouble or discontent. So we must learn to be calm, and train all our faculties, and make others happy.

It isn't what you earn but how spend it that fixes your class.

A man takes a drink, the drink takes another, and the drink takes the man.