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Quotes from Lectures on Russian Literature — Vladimir Nabokov

1899–1977 Russia

← All quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

2 quotes

The rich philistinism emanating from advertisements is due not to their exaggerating (or inventing) the glory of this or that serviceable article but to suggesting that the acme of human happiness is purchasable and that its purchase somehow ennobles the purchaser.

Lectures on Russian Literature (1982)

Philistinism implies not only a collection of stock ideas but also the use of set phrases, clichés, banalities expressed in faded words. A true philistine has nothing but these trivial ideas of which he entirely consists.

Lectures on Russian Literature (1982)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Vladimir Nabokov (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.