World's End Quotes

“Do not let other people invade your personality. Remember that every human being is a unique phenomenon, and worth developing. You will meet many who have no resources of their own, and who will try to fasten themselves upon you. You will find others eager to tell you what to do and think and be. But it is better to go apart and learn to be yourself.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“He learned that love is not all pleasure, but can be agony and heartache, martyrdom and sacrifice. He learned what the clergyman was talking about in the marriage service: for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death do us part.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“Study and think and improve your mind, and keep it clear of all this fog of hatred and propaganda”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“Everybody agreed that the styles for that summer of 1914 were the most extreme since the Restoration,”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“The British and the French were taking unto themselves those portions of Asia Minor which had oil, phosphates, and other treasures, or through which oil pipelines had to travel to the sea. Since the Fourteen Points had guaranteed the inhabitants of these lands the mastery of their own destinies, the subtle statesmen had racked their vocabularies to find some way of taking what they wanted while seeming not to. They had evolved a new word, or rather a new meaning for an old word, which was “mandate.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“One might look at a Rembrandt picture, or hear a Beethoven symphony, without depriving others of the privilege; but one couldn’t become an oil king without taking oil away from others.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“Military men say that troops can stand twenty percent losses; more than that, they go to pieces. But we had many an outfit with only twenty percent survivors and they went on fighting.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“This melodrama differed from others in that it was not written, it was to be played impromptu, and only once; after that it would be precedent, and would determine the destinies of mankind perhaps for centuries. Each of the actors hoped to write it his way, and no living man could say what the dénouement would be.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“If you look at the people on this train, you will see that they are dressed much alike. The train itself is a standard product, and by means of it we travel from town to town selling products which are messengers of internationalism.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“To think that in the midst of the last desperate agony of war, with several “Big Berthas” dropping shells into the city every twenty minutes, with food scarce and fuel unobtainable, more than three thousand men and women had sat at easels and maintained their faith that art could not be destroyed, but was and would remain the supreme achievement and goal of life! Lanny”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“What, then, was the difference between America and Moscow? The “muckraker” said it was a question of who owned the state. In America the people were supposed to own it, but most of the time the big businessmen bought it away from them. “It is privilege which corrupts politics,” was his phrase.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“Lanny, climbing the hill, carried a thought which by now had become his familiar companion: Why, oh, why did men have to make their lives so ugly? What evil spell was upon them that they wrangled and scolded, hated and feared? He”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“Lanny smiled to himself. His chief called himself a “liberal,” and Lanny had been trying to make up his mind just what that meant. He decided that a liberal was a high-minded gentleman who believed the world was made in his own image.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“The French delegates now wore a cynical smile as they argued before the commissions; they had their assurance that their armies were going to hold the Rhineland and the Sarre, and that a series of buffer states were to be set up between Germany and Russia, all owing their existence to France, all financed with the savings of the French peasants, and munitioned by Zaharoff, alias Schneider-Creusot. France and Britain were going to divide Persia and Mesopotamia and Syria and make a deal for the oil and the laying of pipelines. Italy was to take the Adriatic, Japan was to take Shantung—all such matters were being settled among sensible men. Lanny”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“If you wanted to understand a politician you mustn’t pay too much attention to his speeches, but find out who were his paymasters. A politician couldn’t rise in public life, in France any more than in America, unless he had the backing of big money, and it was in times of crisis like this that he paid his debts. X”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“honorificabilitudinitas”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“We expect to flatten them out with artillery, and then get them with hand grenades. There’s one thing they lack, and that’s a lifetime’s practice at throwing a baseball. Most of our fellows can land a grenade onto a target the first throw. Every time you hit the nigger you get a good seegar!” Jerry grinned, and added: “I don’t know if you ever went to a county fair in Kansas.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“He acquired knowledge in weighed and measured portions; memorized facts and recited them, forgot many of them until the end of the month, relearned them for a “test,” forgot them again until the end of a term, relearned them once more for “exam”—and then forgot them forever and ever, amen.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“Eli bade Lanny have the courage of his vision. Without it men would be dull clods, and life would become blind greed and empty pleasure-seeking.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“The important thing is not to wrong any woman—and that is no easy matter, for women are great demanders, and do not scruple to invade the personality.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“This is certain, if you’re too sensitive, and suffer too much, you wreck your own happiness, and maybe your health, and then what are you worth to yourself or anybody else?”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“In wartime it appeared that nobody wanted to see both sides of any question.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“He could hardly keep his seat; for dancing is not something to be watched, it is something to be done.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“Can you love two men at the same time, Beauty?” “That is what I’ve been asking myself for a long while. Apparently I can.” Beauty hadn’t intended to make any such confession, but she was in a state of inner turmoil, and it was her nature to blurt things out.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“Some day you also would be gone, and other men would stand and call to you, and you, too, would not hear.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“Kurt explained that this was a way of referring to persons without culture or ideals. The great mass of men were like that, and civilization was kept going by the labors of a devoted few. “Suppose they were to fail—what then?” “I never thought about it,” admitted the other, worried. “We should sink into barbarism again, into another dark age. That is why the mission of art is such a high one, to save humanity by teaching a true love of beauty and respect for culture.” Lanny”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“love. It was good to do with it, but also good to be able to do without”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“A singular thing—he was a devout Catholic, went every morning to mass, and kneeled to a merciful redeemer who had said: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not.” Little French children, of course; no little German children!”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“Free speech doesn’t overthrow governments,” answered the other. “It’s the lack of free speech.”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End

“When I invest my money in an American company, I become an American, don’t I?”
― Upton Sinclair, World's End