Sidney Hook Quotes

Quotes about:

• Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system.

  Sidney Hook

  Education, Teacher, Teaching

  59 Copy quote

• Tolerance always has limits - it cannot tolerate what is itself actively intolerant.

  Sidney Hook

  Tolerance, Hook, Limits

  Sidney Hook (1975). “Pragmatism and the tragic sense of life”, Basic Books (AZ)

  53 Copy quote

• To silence criticism is to silence freedom.

  Sidney Hook

  Silence, Criticism, Liberty

  34 Copy quote

• The easiest rationalization for the refusal to seek the truth is the denial that truth exists.

  Sidney Hook

  Interesting, Denial, Truth Is

  17 Copy quote

• Fear of death has been the greatest ally of tyranny past and present.

  Sidney Hook

  Inspirational, Death, Past

  Sidney Hook (2002). “Sidney Hook on Pragmatism, Democracy, and Freedom: The Essential Essays”, Pyr Books

  17 Copy quote

• To serve the public interest is not the same as being a servant of public opinion.

  Sidney Hook

  Public Opinion, Interest, Servant

  Sidney Hook (1965). “Political Power and Personal Freedom: Critical Studies in Democracy, Communism, and Civil Rights”

  11 Copy quote

• No one who accepts the sovereignty of truth can be a foot soldier in a party or movement. He will always find himself out of step.

  Sidney Hook

  Party, Feet, Soldier

  9 Copy quote

• Stupidity is sometimes the greatest of historical forces.

  Sidney Hook

  Stupidity, Historical, Sometimes

  10 Copy quote

• In contrast to totalitarianism, democracy can face and live with the truth about itself.

  Sidney Hook

  Democracy, Faces, Contrast

  11 Copy quote

• Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness.

  Sidney Hook

  Ignorance, Doe, Hook

  Sidney Hook (1987). “Out of step: an unquiet life in the 20th century”, Harpercollins

  8 Copy quote

• Before impugning an opponent's motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments.

  Sidney Hook

  Answers, May, Opponents

  Sidney Hook (2002). “Sidney Hook on Pragmatism, Democracy, and Freedom: The Essential Essays”, Pyr Books

  13 Copy quote

• One of the central assumptions of the concept of democracy, perhaps its most central assumption, is that by and large human beings are better judges of their own interests.... The operating maxim of the democratic ideology is, "Whoever wears the shoe knows best where it pinches.

  Sidney Hook

  Power, Shoes, Judging

  14 Copy quote

• The mob that hails the man on horseback, the Caesars and conquering heroes, does not retain its freedoms for long.

  Sidney Hook

  Leadership, Hero, Men

  Sidney Hook (1978). “The Hero in History: Myth, Power, Or Moral Ideal? : Remarks”

  7 Copy quote

• I was guilty of judging capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations; capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature.

  Sidney Hook

  Judging, Society, Liberty

  Sidney Hook (1987). “Out of step: an unquiet life in the 20th century”, Harpercollins

  17 Copy quote

• The difference between science and religion is that the former wishes to get rid of mysteries whereas the latter worships them.

  Sidney Hook

  Science, Differences, Wish

  15 Copy quote

• Religious tolerance has developed more as a consequence of the impotence of religions to impose their dogmas on each other than as a consequence of spiritual humility in the quest for understanding first and last things.

  Sidney Hook

  Spiritual, Religious, Humility

  9 Copy quote

• The next time anyone asks you "What is Bertrand Russell's philosophy?" the correct answer is "What year, please?"

  Sidney Hook

  Art, Philosophy, Years

  4 Copy quote

• Noam Chomsky skittles and skithers all over the political landscape to distract the reader’s attention from the plain truth.

  Sidney Hook

  Political, Attention, Landscape

  7 Copy quote

• [A]nti-Semitism was rife in almost all varieties of socialism.

  Sidney Hook

  Socialism, Variety

  Sidney Hook (1983). “Marxism and beyond”, Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc

  5 Copy quote

• Nonetheless, it still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs, religious doctrines constitute a speculative hypothesis of an extremely low order of probability.

  Sidney Hook

  Religious, Atheist, Order

  Sidney Hook (1991). “The Quest for Being”

  12 Copy quote

• A liberal education will impart an awareness of the amazing and precious complexity of human relationships. Since those relationships are violated more often out of insensitiveness than out of deliberate intent, whatever increases sensitiveness of perception and understanding humanizes life.

  Sidney Hook

  Understanding, Perception, Awareness

  8 Copy quote

• Life has meaning for anyone who takes an interest in it.

  Sidney Hook

  Interest

  10 Copy quote

• Philosophy, most broadly viewed, is the critical survey of existence from the standpoint of value.

  Sidney Hook

  Philosophy, Hook, Surveys

  6 Copy quote

• Students rarely disappoint teachers who assure them in advance that they are doomed to failure.

  Sidney Hook

  Teacher, Fate, Hook

  10 Copy quote

• Everyone recognizes a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. . . Wisdom is a kind of knowledge. It is knowledge of the nature, career, and consequences of human values. Since these cannot be separated from the human organism and the social scene, the moral ways of man cannot be understood without knowledge of the ways of things and institutions.

  Sidney Hook

  Men, Careers, Way

  7 Copy quote

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