Nếu khả năng đọc mang người đàn ông trung bình không cao hơn tin đồn của hàng xóm, nếu anh ta không hỏi gì hơn bị kéo xuống cho anh ta thay vì anh ta được nâng lên bởi văn hóa.
If the ability to read carries the average man no higher than the gossip of his neighbours, if he asks nothing more nourishing out of books and the theatre than he gets hanging about the store, the bar and the street-corner, then culture is bound to be dragged down to him instead of his being lifted up by culture.
Edith Wharton, French Ways and Their Meaning