Lewis H. LaphamThinkers

The Bank is a temple of sorts. It is no accident that they resemble Greek temples and that the supplicants who come to perform the rites of deposit and withdrawal instinctively lower their voices into the registers of awe.

The Journalist is one who fears, above all else, standing alone against the whim of his owners or the prejudices of his audience..

Money is like fire, an element as little troubled by moralizing as earth, air and water. Men can employ it as a tool or they can dance around it as if it were the incarnation of a God. Money votes socialist or monarchist, finds a profit in pornography or translations from the Bible, commissions rembrandt and underwrites the technology of auschwitz. It acquires its meaning from the uses to which it is put.

Money is a kind of God. It is no accident that banks resemble Greek temples and that the supplicants who come to perform the rites of deposit and withdrawal instinctively lower their voices into the registers of awe.

The Museum is less a gallery of living portraits and more a cemetery of tax-deductible wealth.