Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Upton Sinclair (American Novelist, Social Reformer)

Upton Sinclair (1878–1968,) fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr., was an American novelist and social reformer. A prolific author who was deeply committed to social justice, he wrote in many genres. He was a celebrated polemicist for socialism, health, and temperance, free speech, and worker rights, among other causes.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Sinclair received a bachelor’s degree from the City College of New York and completed graduate work at Columbia University. Moving to Quebec, Canada, where extreme poverty motivated his first novel, Springtime, and Harvest (privately published in 1901 and later renamed King Midas.) By the age of twenty, he was a committed socialist, joining the Socialist party in 1902, founding the Intercollegiate Socialist Society in 1905 with the novelist Jack London.

Fame came suddenly with The Jungle (1906,) his best-known work. First serialized in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, The Jungle describes the wretched sanitary and working conditions in the Chicago meatpacking industry. The book’s release sparked a public outcry both nationally and internationally. It became one of the most politically influential American novels of the past 100 years.

Although it was intended to arouse sympathy for the suffering, injustice, and despair of the workers, the book instead led to the passage of the first food inspection laws in the United States. Upton was disappointed to learn that the public was more concerned about the quality of the foods produced. Looking back, he famously lamented that he had “aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident hit it in the stomach.”

Sinclair published numerous other protest novels, including Metropolis (1908,) King Coal (1917,) The Profits of Religion (1918,) Oil! (1927,) and Boston (1928) were increasingly influenced by his socialist beliefs. He also wrote the Lanny Budd series (11 vols., 1940–53) of historical novels, including Dragon’s Teeth (1943; Pulitzer.) Sinclair also wrote two autobiographical works (1932, 1962) and A World to Win (1946.)

Leon Harris wrote the biography Upton Sinclair: American Rebel (1975.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Upton Sinclair

All art is propaganda. It is universally and inescapably propaganda; sometimes unconsciously, but often deliberately, propaganda.
—Upton Sinclair

Fascism is capitalism plus murder.
—Upton Sinclair
Topics: Capitalism

The supreme crime of the church to-day is that everywhere and in all its operations and influences it is on the side of sloth of mind; that it banishes brains, it sanctifies stupidity, it canonizes incompetence.
—Upton Sinclair

The private control of credit is the modern form of slavery.
—Upton Sinclair

Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions about himself.
—Upton Sinclair

All truly great art is optimistic. The individual artist is happy in his creative work. The fact that practically all great art is tragic does not in any way change the above thesis.
—Upton Sinclair
Topics: The Artist

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!
—Upton Sinclair
Topics: Understanding

Let us redeem our great words from base uses. Let that no longer call itself Love, which knows that it is not free!
—Upton Sinclair

Human beings suffer agonies, and their sad fates become legends; poets write verses about them and playwrights compose dramas, and the remembrance of past grief becomes a source of present pleasure – such is the strange alchemy of the spirit.
—Upton Sinclair

Now and then it occurs to one to reflect upon what slender threads of accident depend the most important circumstances of his life; to look back and shudder, realizing how close to the edge of nothingness his being has come.
—Upton Sinclair

Can you not see that the task is your task – yours to dream, yours to resolve, yours to execute?
—Upton Sinclair

An event of colossal and overwhelming significance may happen all at once, but the words which describe it have to come one by one in a long chain.
—Upton Sinclair

Wondering Whom to Read Next?

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *