Edgar Friedenberg Quotes

• What we must decide is how we are valuable rather than how valuable we are.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Self Esteem, Optimistic, Valuable

  46 Copy quote

• Not only do most people accept violence if it is perpetuated by legitimate authority, they also regard violence against certain kinds of people as inherently legitimate, no matter who commits it.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  People, Matter, Violence

  10 Copy quote

• Juvenile delinquency serves many purposes, including that of providing sadistic adults with fantasies suited to their special tastes.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Evil, Special, Adults

  52 Copy quote

• All weakness tends to corrupt, and impotence corrupts absolutely.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Weakness, Impotence

  Edgar Z. Friedenberg (1965). “Coming of Age in America”

  6 Copy quote

• What is learned in high school, or for that matter anywhere at all, depends far less on what is taught than on what one actually experiences in the place.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  School, Matter, Taught

  Edgar Z. Friedenberg (1965). “Coming of Age in America”

  4 Copy quote

• Canadians are more polite when they are being rude than Americans are when they are being friendly.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Rude, Friendly, Being Rude

  6 Copy quote

• So much of learning to be an American is learning not to let your individuality become a nuisance.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Individuality, Nuisance, Democratic

  4 Copy quote

• In a world as empirical as ours, a youngster who does not know what he is good at will not be sure what he is good for.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Doe, World, Youngsters

  4 Copy quote

• Human life is a continuous thread which each of us spins to his own pattern, rich and complex in meaning. There are no natural knots in it. Yet knots form, nearly always in adolescence.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Teenage, Patterns, Life Is

  Edgar Z. Friedenberg (1965). “Coming of Age in America”

  10 Copy quote

• It is idle to talk of civil liberties to adults who were systematically taught in adolescence that they had none; and it is sheer hypocrisy to call such people freedom loving.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  People, Hypocrisy, Liberty

  4 Copy quote

• Every major industrial society believes that it has a serious youth problem.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Believe, Serious, Youth

  4 Copy quote

• The teenager seems to have replaced the Communist as the appropriate target for public controversy and foreboding.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Inspirational, Teenage, Target

  17 Copy quote

• It takes a kind of shabby arrogance to survive in our time, and a fairly romantic nature to want to.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Arrogance, Want, Kind

  8 Copy quote

• Part of the American dream is to live long and die young.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Dream, Long, Young

  56 Copy quote

• If a people have no word for something, either it does not matter to them or it matters too much to talk about.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  People, Doe, Matter

  6 Copy quote

• Most Americans would say that they disapproved of violence. But what they really mean is that they believe it should be the monopoly of the state.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Believe, Mean, Violence

  4 Copy quote

• No American is prepared to attend his own funeral without the services of highly skilled cosmeticians. Part of the American dream, after all, is to live long and die young.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Dream, Long, Funeral

  7 Copy quote

• The atmosphere [in the school lunchroom] is not quite that of a prison, because the students are permitted to talk quietly, under the frowning scrutiny of teachers standing around on duty, during their meal-they are not supposed to talk while standing in line, though this rule is only sporadically enforced.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Education, Teacher, School

  7 Copy quote

• Romance, like alcohol, should be enjoyed but must not be allowed to become necessary.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Romance, Alcohol, Should

  4 Copy quote

• Adolescents tend to be passionate people, and passion is no less real because it is directed toward a hot-rod, a commercialized popular singer, or the leader of a black-jacketed gang.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Real, Passion, People

  4 Copy quote

• Those who love the young best stay young longer.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Family, Young

  7 Copy quote

• The examined life has always been pretty well confined to a privileged class.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Class, Wells, Examined Life

  5 Copy quote

• Only science can hope to keep technology in some sort of moral order.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Technology, Order, Moral

  4 Copy quote

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