Quote

The hatred Americans have for their own government is pathological, if understandable. At one level it is simply thwarted greed: since our religion is making a buck, giving a part of that buck to any government is an act against nature.

Gore Vidal

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Gore Vidal
Age: 86 †
Born: 1925
Born: October 3
Died: 2012
Died: July 31
Actor
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Non-Fiction Writer
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Playwright
Politician
Prosaist
West Point
New York
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Gor Vidal
Cameron Kay
Eugene Luther Vidal
Edgar Box
Katherine Everard
Eugene Vidal
Simply
Understandable
Since
Insulting
Religion
Bucks
Making
Greed
Nature
Hatred
Part
Americans
Thwarted
Government
Level
Pathological
Giving
Levels
Buck

More quotes by Gore Vidal

Image
In a nation that has developed to a high art advertising, the creator who refuses to advertise himself is immediately suspected of having no product worth selling.
Gore Vidal
Image
Despite the warnings of other times, the impetuous and the confident continue their indiscriminate cultivation of weeds at the expense of occasional flowers.
Gore Vidal
Image
There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.
Gore Vidal
Image
Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.
Gore Vidal
Image
Sex was a great no-no for Americans, so that was obviously an attraction to the writers, and since sex is a great part of most people's lives, it's a great subject.
Gore Vidal
Image
I'm in favor of any form of sexual relationship that gives pleasure to those involved. And I have never heard a convincing argument to the contrary.
Gore Vidal
Image
It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people.
Gore Vidal
Image
CO₂ emissions anywhere threaten civilisation everywhere.
Gore Vidal
Image
The fool is often oblivious of his own gaucherie.
Gore Vidal
Image
I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam - good people, yes, but any religion based on a single, well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system.
Gore Vidal
Image
Instead of finding alternative energy sources, we try to subjugate entire regions of the world. People do not understand that by doing this, the United States are going to absolute ruin.
Gore Vidal
Image
That peculiarly American religion, President-worship.
Gore Vidal
Image
Celebrities are invariably celebrity-mad, just as liars always believe liars.
Gore Vidal
Image
There are two things you never turn down: sex and appearing on television.
Gore Vidal
Image
It is astonishing to think that millions of people in my time—now, too, I suppose—actually thought that at a given moment in history two human beings had evolved to a higher state than that of all the gods that ever were or ever will be. This is titanism, as the Greeks would say. This is madness.
Gore Vidal
Image
I am glad my life is coming to an end. To think that it might last another five hundred years, now that would be terrible, in my case.
Gore Vidal
Image
I'm a much worse guest than I am a host, and I'm not an awfully good host either. I really like being alone.
Gore Vidal
Image
The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all.
Gore Vidal
Image
Nonprofit status is what created the Bible Belt. The tax code brought religion back to this country.
Gore Vidal
Image
A superficial education would be worse than none. But a full education would open every man's eyes to the nature of human existence.
Gore Vidal