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121 " He was permitted, without restriction, to speak of himself as immoral, agnostic and socialistic, so long as it was universally known that he remained pure, Presbyterian, and Republican. "
― Sinclair Lewis , Arrowsmith
122 " As to industrial conditions, however, Babbitt had thought a great deal, and his opinions may be coordinated as follows: "A good labor union is of value because it keeps out radical unions, which would destroy property. No one ought to be forced to belong to a union, however. All labor agitators who try to force men to join a union should be hanged. In fact, just between ourselves, there oughtn't to be any unions allowed at all; and as it's the best way of fighting the unions, every business man ought to belong to an employers'-association and to the Chamber of Commerce. In union there is strength. So any selfish hog who doesn't join the Chamber of Commerce ought to be forced to. "
― Sinclair Lewis , Babbitt
123 " 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. "
― Sinclair Lewis , It Can't Happen Here
124 " In my opinion, what the country needs, first and foremost, is a good, sound, business-like conduct of its affairs. What we need is—a business administration ! "
125 " More and more, as I think about history,” he pondered, “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 of silencing them forever.” * "
126 " He called himself an “agnostic” instead of an “atheist” only because he detested the street-bawling, tract-peddling evangelicism of the professional atheists. "
127 " preachers and modernist educators and discontented newspapermen and farm agitators—maybe they’ll worry at first, but they’ll get caught up in the web of propaganda, like we all were in the Great War, and they’ll all be convinced that, even if our Buzzy maybe has got a few faults, he’s on the side of the plain people, and against all the tight old political machines, and they’ll rouse the country for him as the Great Liberator (and meanwhile Big Business will just wink and sit tight!), and "
128 " world." "I love her for being so happy," Carol brooded. "I ought to be that way. I worship the baby, but the housework——Oh, I suppose I'm fortunate; so much better off than farm-women on a new clearing, or people in a slum." It "
― Sinclair Lewis , Main Street
129 " We don’t want all this highbrow intellectuality, all this book-learning. "
130 " Just as he was an Elk, a Booster, and a member of the Chamber of Commerce, just as the priests of the Presbyterian Church determined his every religious belief and the senators who controlled the Republican Party decided in little smoky rooms in Washington what he should think about disarmament, tariff, and Germany, so did the large national advertisers fix the surface of his life, fix what he believed to be his individuality. "
131 " Albert Einstein, who had been exiled from Germany for his guilty devotion to mathematics, world peace, and the violin, was now exiled from America for the same crimes. "
132 " He stopped smoking at least once a month. He went through with it like the solid citizen he was: admitted the evils of tobacco, courageously made resolves, laid out plans to check the vice, tapered off his allowance of cigars, and expounded the pleasures of virtuousness to every one he met. He did everything, in fact, except stop smoking. "
133 " flight from familiar tedium to new tedium would have for a time the outer look and promise of adventure. "
134 " All Negroes shall be prohibited from voting, holding public office, practicing law, medicine, or teaching in any class above the grade of grammar school, and they shall be taxed 100 per cent of all sums in excess of $10,000 per family per year which they may earn or in any other manner receive. "
135 " He liked three kinds of films: pretty bathing girls with bare legs; policemen or cowboys and an industrious shooting of revolvers; and funny fat men who ate spaghetti. "
136 " Say, I swear the best Messiah in the whole show is this darky, Father Divine. "
137 " I wouldn’t care whether it was a laboratory or a carnival. But it’s merely safe. Tell me, Mr. Pollock, what is the matter with Gopher Prairie? "
138 " Isn’t there perhaps something the matter with you and me? (May I join you in the honor of having something the matter?)” “(Yes, thanks.) No, I think it’s the town. "
139 " 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. "
140 " I’m not sure that I shall. I’m trying to develop my own large capacity for dullness and contentment. I’ve failed at every positive thing I’ve tried. I’d better ‘settle down,’ as they call it, and be satisfied to be—nothing. "