"Philistinism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... personification with which we are all familiar—to wit, John Bull. Is he a helpful or a detrimental "synthesis"? It is not quite easy to say. There is a certain geniality, a bluff wholesomeness, a downright honesty about him, which has doubtless its value; but on the other hand he is the incarnation of Philistinism and Toryism, the perfect expression of the average sensual man. I am told that in one of his avatars he has something like two million worshippers, on whom his influence is of the most questionable, precisely because they have implicit "faith" ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... have hewn down, still live among us by outrage of this kind, and impose his memory upon our pavement by the public perpetration of his posthumous philistinism? ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... whitewashed by the Jewish press, eulogized by platform orators as a shining light in Israel, the brilliant impressionist painter, and all that. I shall pay my synagogue bill and never go. In short, I shall be converted to Philistinism, and die in the odor of respectability. And Judaism will continue to flourish. Oh, Addie, Addie, if I had thought of all that, I should never have asked ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill |
