Henry Steele Commager Quotes

Quotes about:

• Education is essential to change, for education creates both new wants and the ability to satisfy them.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Education, Essentials, Want

  56 Copy quote

• Change does not necessarily assure progress, but progress implacably requires change.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Inspirational, Progress And Change, Progress

  11 Copy quote

• The Bill of Rights was not written to protect governments from trouble. It was written precisely to give the people the constitutional means to cause trouble for governments they no longer trusted.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Mean, Rights, Government

  "Letter to the Editor". The New York Times, 1971.

  20 Copy quote

• A free society cherishes nonconformity.
  It knows from the non-conformist, from the eccentric,
  have come many of the great ideas.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Ideas, Eccentric, Cherish

  26 Copy quote

• Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Patriotic, Men, Thinking

  "The Problem of Dissent". "Saturday Review" Magazine, Volume 48, December 1965.

  24 Copy quote

• We cannot have a society half slave and half free; nor can we have thought half slave and half free. If we create an atmosphere in which men fear to think independently, inquire fearlessly, express themselves freely, we will in the end create the kind of society in which men no longer care to think independently or to inquire fearlessly.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Men, Thinking, Atmosphere

  17 Copy quote

• Censorship always defeats it own purpose, for it creates in the end the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Real, Exercise, Censorship In Books

  16 Copy quote

• History is organized memory, and the organization is all important!

  Henry Steele Commager

  Memories, Organization, Important

  Henry Steele Commager, Raymond Henry Muessig (1980). “The study and teaching of history”, Merrill Publishing Company

  15 Copy quote

• It is sobering to recall that though the Japanese relocation program, carried through at such incalculable cost in misery and tragedy, was justified on the ground that the Japanese were potentially disloyal, the record does not disclose a single case of Japanese disloyalty or sabotage during the whole war.

  Henry Steele Commager

  War, Tragedy, Cost

  7 Copy quote

• The justification and the purpose of freedom of speech is not to indulge those who want to speak their minds. It is to prevent error and discover truth. There may be other ways of detecting error and discovering truth than that of free discussion, but so far we have not found them.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Errors, Freedom Of Speech, Mind

  14 Copy quote

• Whether history will judge this war to be different or not we cannot say. But this we can say with certainty: A government and a society that silences those who dissent is one that has lost its way.

  Henry Steele Commager

  War, Government, Judging

  6 Copy quote

• We should not be surprised that the Founding Fathers didn't foresee everything, when we see that the current Fathers hardly ever foresee anything.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Father, Should, Currents

  9 Copy quote

• Our best people don't go into politics.

  Henry Steele Commager

  People

  5 Copy quote

• In the long run [censorship] will create a generation incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Running, Differences, Long

  6 Copy quote

• America was born of revolt, flourished in dissent, became great through experimentation.

  Henry Steele Commager

  America, Liberty, Libertarian

  "Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent". Book by Henry Steele Commager, 1954.

  9 Copy quote

• If our democracy is to flourish, it must have criticism; if our government is to function it must have dissent.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Government, Liberty, Democracy

  "Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent". Book by Henry Steele Commager, 1954.

  10 Copy quote

• The American people...have a stake in non-conformity. For they know that the American genius is non-conformist.

  Henry Steele Commager

  People, Genius, Conformity

  5 Copy quote

• The decision for complete religious freedom and for separation of church and state in the eyes of the rest of the world was perhaps the most important decision reached in the New World. Everywhere in the western world of the 18th century, church and state were one; and everywhere the state maintained an established church and tried to force conformity to its dogma.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Religious, Eye, Decision

  14 Copy quote

• Freedom is not a luxury that we can indulge in when at last we have security and prosperity and enlightenment; it is, rather, antecedent to all of these, for without it we can have neither security nor prosperity nor enlightenment.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Indulge In, Luxury, Enlightenment

  7 Copy quote

• The greatest danger that threatens us is neither heterodox thought nor orthodox thought, but the absence of thought.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Absence, Danger, Orthodox

  "Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent". Book by Henry Steele Commager, 1954.

  9 Copy quote

• The Americans who framed our Constitution felt that without freedom of religion no other freedom counted.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Atheism, Constitution, Framed

  10 Copy quote

• History, we can confidently assert, is useful in the sense that art and music, poetry and flowers, religion and philosophy are useful. Without it - as with these - life would be poorer and meaner; without it we should be denied some of those intellectual and moral experiences which give meaning and richness to life. Surely it is no accident that the study of history has been the solace of many of the noblest minds of every generation.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Art, Philosophy, Flower

  22 Copy quote

• We should not forget that our tradition is one of protest and revolt, and it is stultifying to celebrate the rebels of the past ... while we silence the rebels of the present.

  Henry Steele Commager

  War, Past, Silence

  "Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent". Book by Henry Steele Commager, 1954.

  9 Copy quote

• Every effort to confine Americanism to a single pattern, to constrain it to a single formula, is disloyalty to everything that is valid in Americanism.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Government, Effort, Patterns

  "Who is Loyal to America?". "Harper's Magazine", Vol. 195, No. 1168, 1947.

  8 Copy quote

• The English love for privacy is proverbial, and has not been exaggerated. A stranger who strikes up a conversation is looked upon with suspicion - unless he happens to be an American, when his ignorance of good manners is indulged.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Ignorance, Good Man, Privacy

  8 Copy quote

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