Richard Hofstadter Quotes

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A university's essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism - a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else.

Richard Hofstadter

Character, Criticism, Being Free

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It is ironic that the United States should have been founded by intellectuals, for throughout most of our political history, the intellectual has been for the most part either an outsider, a servant or a scapegoat.

Richard Hofstadter

Should Have, Political, Intellectual

"Anti-Intellectualism in American Life". Book by Richard Hofstadter, pp. 145-146, 1963.

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If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to some special and constricting idea.

Richard Hofstadter

Education, Independent, Commitment

Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.29, Vintage

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We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.

Richard Hofstadter

Real, World, Fantasy

Richard Hofstadter (2016). “The Paranoid Style in American Politics: An Essay: from The Paranoid Style in American Politics”, p.29, Vintage

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One of the primary tests of the mood of a society at any given time is whether its comfortable people tend to identify, psychologically, with the power and achievements of the very successful or with the needs and sufferings of the underprivileged.

Richard Hofstadter

Honesty, Successful, Compassion

"The Age of Reform: from Bryan to F.D.R". Book by Richard Hofstadter, Chapter VI, part II, p. 245, 1955.

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The idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.

Richard Hofstadter

Men, Expression, Ideas

"The Paranoid Style in American Politics". Harper's Magazine, November 1964.

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Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege.

Richard Hofstadter

Privilege, Form, Intellect

Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.34, Vintage

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There has always been in our national experience a type of mind which elevates hatred to a kind of creed; for this mind, group hatreds take a place in politics similar to the class struggle in some other modern societies.

Richard Hofstadter

Struggle, Class, Hatred

Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.37, Vintage

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It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies but to be one.

Richard Hofstadter

Fate, Ideology, Has Beens

Quoted in the NewYork Times, 2 Jul 1989.

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If for every error and every act of incompetence one can substitute an act of treason, many points of fascinating interpretation are open to the paranoid imagination.

Richard Hofstadter

Errors, Imagination, Incompetence

Richard Hofstadter (2016). “The Paranoid Style in American Politics: An Essay: from The Paranoid Style in American Politics”, p.19, Vintage

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The role of third parties is to sting like a bee, then die.

Richard Hofstadter

Party, Roles, Bees

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To the reactionary ear every whispered criticism of the elite classes has always sounded like the opening shot of an uprising.

Richard Hofstadter

Class, Uprising, Criticism

RICHARD HOFSTADTER (1962). “The American Political Tradition And the Men Who Made It”

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It is a poor head that cannot find plausible reason for doing what the heart wants to do.

Richard Hofstadter

Heart, Want, Reason

Richard Hofstadter (2011). “The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made it”, p.231, Vintage

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A university is not a service station. Neither is it a political society, nor a meeting place for political societies. With all its limitations and failures, and they are invariably many, it is the best and most benign side of our society insofar as that society aims to cherish the human mind.

Richard Hofstadter

Failure, Men, Political

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As with the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of truth is itself gratifying whereas the consummation often turns out to be elusive.

Richard Hofstadter

Truth, Pursuit Of Happiness, Turns

Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.30, Vintage

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Anti-intellectualism ... has been present in some form and degree in most societies; in one it takes the form of the administering of hemlock, in another of town-and-gown riots, in another of censorship and regimentation, in still another of Congressional investigations.

Richard Hofstadter

Degrees, Hemlock, Gowns

Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.20, Vintage

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Whatever the intellectual is too certain of, if he is healthily playful, he begins to find unsatisfactory. The meaning of his intellectual life lies not in the possession of truth but in the quest for new uncertainties.

Richard Hofstadter

Lying, Intellectual, Quests

Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.30, Vintage

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In using the terms play and playfulness, I do not intend to suggest any lack of seriousness; quite the contrary. Anyone who has watched children, or adults, at play will recognize that there is no contradiction between play and seriousness, and that some forms of play induce a measure of grave concentration not so readily called forth by work.

Richard Hofstadter

Children, Play, Adults

Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.30, Vintage

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The nation seems to slouch onward into its uncertain future like some huge inarticulate beast, too much attainted by wounds and ailments to be robust, but too strong and resourceful to succumb.

Richard Hofstadter

Strong, Too Much, Beast

Quoted in Hedrick Smith The Power Game (1988).

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Intellectualism, though by no means confined to doubters, is often the sole piety of the skeptic.

Richard Hofstadter

Mean, Doubters, Sole

Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.28, Vintage

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The tradition of the new. Yesterday's avant-gard-experiment is today's chic and tomorrow's cliche.

Richard Hofstadter

Fashion, Yesterday, Today

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It is a part of the intellectual's tragedy that the things he most values about himself and his work are quite unlike those society values in him.

Richard Hofstadter

Intellectual, Tragedy, Values

Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.33, Vintage

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We have learned so well how to absorb novelty that receptivity itself has turned into a kind of tradition- "the tradition of the new." Yesterdays avant-garde experiment is today's chic and tomorrows cliche.

Richard Hofstadter

Yesterday, Avant Garde, Today

Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.418, Vintage

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Intellect needs to be understood not as some kind of claim against the other human excellences for which a fatally high price has to be paid, but rather as a complement to them without which they cannot be fully consummated.

Richard Hofstadter

Excellence, Needs, Kind

Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.46, Vintage

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It is possible that the distinction between moral relativism and moral absolutism has sometimes been blurred because an excessively consistent practice of either leads to the same practical result — ruthlessness in political life.

Richard Hofstadter

Moral Absolutism, Practice, Political

Richard Hofstadter (2011). “The Age of Reform”, p.16, Vintage

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Born: August 6, 1916
Died: October 24, 1970
Occupation: Historian
Cite this Page: Citation

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