Upton Sinclair Quotes
September 20 1878 – November 25, 1968
More Upton Sinclair Quotes
I discover that hardly a week passes that some one does not start a new cult, or revive an old one; if I had a hundred life-times I could not know all the creeds and ceremonies, the services and rituals, the litanies and liturgies, the hymns, anthems and offertories of Bootstrap-lifting.
Upton Sinclair— Upton Sinclair, The Profits of Religion : An Essay in Economic Interpretation (1918), Introductory, "Bootstrap-lifting".
What life means to me is to put the content of Shelley into the form of Zola . The proletarian writer is a writer with a purpose; he thinks no more of "art for art's sake" than a man on a sinking ship thinks of painting a beautiful picture in the cabin; he thinks of getting ashore and then there will be time enough for art.
Upton Sinclair— Cosmopolitan (October 1906)
Let us redeem our great words from base uses. Let that no longer call itself Love , which knows that it is not free !
Upton Sinclair— Love's Pilgrimage (1911)
I used to say to our audiences: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
Upton Sinclair— I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked (1935), ISBN 0-520-08198-6; repr. University of California Press, 1994, p. 109.
Fascism is capitalism plus murder .
Upton Sinclair— Presidential Agent II (1944), ISBN 1-93131-318-0
I just put on what the lady says. I've been married three times, so I've had lots of supervision.
Upton Sinclair— Interview in The New York Times (7 September 1962)
The first thing brought forth by the study of any religion , ancient or modern, is that it is based upon Fear , born of it, fed by it and that it cultivates the source from which its nourishment is derived.
Upton Sinclair— Book One : The Church of the Conquerors, "The Great Fear"
The supreme crime of the church to-day is that everywhere and in all its operations and influences it is on the side of sloth of mind ; that it banishes brains, it sanctifies stupidity , it canonizes incompetence.
Upton Sinclair— Book Two : The Church of Good Society, "The Canonization of Incompetence"
Now and then it occurs to one to reflect upon what slender threads of accident depend the most important circumstances of his life ; to look back and shudder, realizing how close to the edge of nothingness his being has come.
Upton Sinclair— Section 1 (100%: the Story of a Patriot (1920))
An event of colossal and overwhelming significance may happen all at once, but the words which describe it have to come one by one in a long chain.
Upton Sinclair— Section 2 (100%: the Story of a Patriot (1920))
Wherever there was a group of people, and a treasure to be administered, there Peter knew was backbiting and scandal and intriguing and spying, and a chance for somebody whose brains were "all there."
Upton Sinclair— Section 2 (100%: the Story of a Patriot (1920))
It was cold and clammy in the stone cell; they called it the "cooler," and used it to reduce the temperature of the violent and intractable. It was a trouble-saving device; they just left the man there and forgot him, and his own tormented mind did the rest.
Upton Sinclair— Section 4 (100%: the Story of a Patriot (1920))
I discover that hardly a week passes that some one does not start a new cult, or revive an old one; if I had a hundred life-times I could not know all the creeds and ceremonies, the services and rituals, the litanies and liturgies, the hymns, anthems and offertories of Bootstrap-lifting.
Upton Sinclair— Upton Sinclair, The Profits of Religion : An Essay in Economic Interpretation (1918), Introductory, "Bootstrap-lifting".
I have not only found good health, but perfect health; I have found a new state of being, a potentiality of life; a sense of lightness and cleanness and joyfulness, such as I did not know could exist in the human body.
Upton Sinclair— Upton Sinclair, The Fasting Cure
Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions about himself. He is humiliated by his simian ancestry, and tries to deny his animal nature, to persuade himself that he is not limited by its weaknesses nor concerned in its fate.
Upton Sinclair— Upton Sinclair, The Profits of Religion, (1918), "Introduction"
