Youth as glimpsed by its elders is a story that comes from afar, showing itself as either lovely to look at or a torment to endure.

- Lewis H. Lapham

Talk about the flag or drugs or crime (never about race or class or justice) and follow the yellow brick road to the wonderful land of consensus. In …

- Lewis H. Lapham

America is about class. To pretend that it isn't is very ignorant. No society has ever existed without some kind of a ruling class.

- Lewis H. Lapham

People may expect too much of journalism. Not only do they expect it to be entertaining, they expect it to be true.

- Lewis H. Lapham

Never in the history of the world have so many people been so rich; never in the history of the world have so many of those same people felt themselv…

- Lewis H. Lapham

The survival of American democracy depends less on the size of its armies than on the capacity of its individual citizens to rely... on the strength …

- Lewis H. Lapham

The future is an empty canvas or a blank sheet of paper, and if you have the courage of your own thought and your own observation you can make of it …

- Lewis H. Lapham

A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business…

- Lewis H. Lapham

Dissent is what rescues democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors.

- Lewis H. Lapham