America... an economic system prouder of the distribution of its products than of the products themselves. Murray Kempton More Quotes by Murray Kempton More Quotes From Murray Kempton A political convention is just not a place where you come away with any trace of faith in human nature. Murray Kempton where-you-come politics political Any experience deeply felt makes some men better and some men worse. When it has ended, they share nothing but the recollection of a commitment in which each was tested and to some degree found wanting. [...] The consequences of the journey change the voyager so much more than the embarking or the arrival. Murray Kempton degrees journey commitment A critic is someone who enters the battlefield after the war is over and shoots the wounded. Murray Kempton wounded critics war There is a raging tiger inside every man whom God put on this earth. Every man worthy of the respect of his children spends his life building inside himself a cage to pen that tiger in. Murray Kempton earth men children No great scoundrel is ever uninteresting. Murray Kempton scoundrels It is not the least of a martyr's scourges to be canonized by the persons who burned him. Murray Kempton burned martyr persons Men very seldom change, try though we will, beneath the shifts of exterior doctrine, our hearts so often remain what they were. Murray Kempton heart trying men We are all addicts in various stages of degradation where I live on the Upper West Side, some to heroin, some to small dogs, and some to the New York Times. The heroin is cut, the dogs are paranoid, and the Times cheats by skimping on the West Coast ball scores. No matter, each of us goes upon the street solely in pursuit of his own particular curse. Murray Kempton cutting new-york dog A revolution requires of its leaders a record of unbroken infallibility; if they do not possess it, they are expected to invent it. Murray Kempton unbroken records leader It is a measure of the Negro's circumstance that, in America, the smallest things usually take him so very long, and that, by the time he wins them, they are no longer little things: they are miracles. Murray Kempton winning long america It is function of government to invent philosophies to explain the demands of its own convenience. Murray Kempton demand government philosophy By adherence to a special set of rules, the child of the shabby-genteel can sometimes leap across the time which has passed by his family and function in the real world without doing violence to the hopes his mother held out for him. But those who cannot live within this pattern are the freaks and poets, and they travel a different road to peace. Murray Kempton real mother children The faces in New York remind me of people who played a game and lost. Murray Kempton new-york games people The fates have a way of demanding of a man that he suffer his greatest moments all by himself; being lone seems as often attendant upon reality as being in company is attendant upon the flight from reality. Murray Kempton fate destiny reality The world of shabby gentility is like no other; its sacrifices have less logic, its standards are harsher, its relation to reality is dimmer than comfortable property or plain poverty can understand. Murray Kempton sacrifice reality world Every social war is a battle between the very few on both sides who care and who fire their shots across a crowd of spectators. Murray Kempton battle fire war To say that an idea is fashionable is to say, I think, that is has been adulterated to a point where it is hardly an idea at all. Murray Kempton fashionable ideas thinking There are things a man must not do even to save a nation. Murray Kempton patriotism nations men A neighborhood is where, when you go out of it, you get beat up. Murray Kempton beats neighborhood To be a gentleman is to be oneself, all of a seam, on camera and off. Murray Kempton oneself cameras gentleman
