"Good intentions, like mother’s milk, are a perishable commodity. As wealth accumulates, men decay, and sooner or later an aristocracy that once might have aspired to an ideal of wisdom and virtue goes rancid in the sun, becomes an oligarchy distinguished by a character that Aristotle likened to that of “the prosperous fool”—its members so besotted by their faith in money that “they therefore imagine there is nothing that it cannot buy.”"
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Essayists from the United StatesJournalists from the United StatesEditors from the United StatesPolitical authors from the United StatesPeople from San Francisco
Original Language: English
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Feast of Fools, How American democracy became all about the rule of money Laphams Quarterly, 22 September 2012
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lewis_H._Lapham
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Lewis H. Lapham
Lewis Henry Lapham (January 8, 1935 – July 23, 2024) was an American writer. He was the editor of the American monthly Harper's Magazine from 1976 until 1981, and from 1983 until 2006. He also was the founder of the eponymous publication about history and literature entitled Lapham's Quarterly.
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