Skip to content

Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn "reasonable" and become your enemies, one quarter are afraid to speak, and one quarter are killed and you die with them. But the blessed final quarter keep you alive.

— Sinclair Lewis It Can't Happen Here (1935)

Another quote →

More quotes by Sinclair Lewis

Slow yellow river flowing, willows that gesture in tepid August airs, and four children playing at greatness, as, doubtless, great men themselves must play.

Ann Vickers (1933)

It is not what he feels and aspires that moves him primarily; it is what the folks about him will think of him.

describing the protagonist of Babbitt (1922)

Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead.

Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.

Gideon Planish (1943)

Is it possible that nobody has ever known—that there never has been a completely civilized man, and won't be for another thousand years?

The God-Seeker (1949)

All Sinclair Lewis quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Sinclair Lewis (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.