34+ Henry Steele Commager Quotes On America, Government And Education

Henry Steele Commager was an American historian, best known for his work as a social and intellectual historian. He was a prolific author and editor, as well as a professor at Columbia University and Amherst College. He was one of the most influential historians of the 20th century, and his books on the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the American Constitution are still widely read today. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Henry Steele Commager on america, government, education.

Top 10 Henry Steele Commager Quotes

1. 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.
2. A free society cherishes nonconformity. It knows from the non-conformist, from the eccentric, have come many of the great ideas.
3. 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.
4. Censorship always defeats it own purpose, for it creates in the end the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.
5. Change does not necessarily assure progress, but progress implacably requires change.
6. If our democracy is to flourish, it must have criticism; if our government is to function it must have dissent.
7. The Americans who framed our Constitution felt that without freedom of religion no other freedom counted.
8. History is a jangle of accidents, blunders, surprises and absurdities, and so is our knowledge of it, but if we are to report it at all we must impose some order upon it.
9. To yearn for a single, and usually simple, explanation of the chaotic materials of the past, to search for a single thread in that most tangled of all skeins, is a sign of immaturity.
10. America was born of revolt, flourished in dissent, became great through experimentation.

Henry Steele Commager Short Quotes

• It's awfully hard to be the son of a great man and also of a half-crazy woman.
• What every college must do is hold up before the young the spectacle of greatness.
• History is organized memory, and the organization is all important!
• Our best people don't go into politics.

Henry Steele Commager Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The American people...have a stake in non-conformity. For they know that the American genius is non-conformist. — Henry Steele Commager

And we wonder what can be that 'philosophy of education' which believes that young people can be trained to the duties of citizenship by wrapping their minds in cotton wool. — Henry Steele Commager

It seems fair to say that while the moral standards of the nineteenth century persisted almost unchanged into the twentieth, moral practices changed sharply, and that though the standards of the nineteenth century persisted the institutions that had sustained them and the sanctions that had enforced them lost influence and authority. — Henry Steele Commager

The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion. — Henry Steele Commager

Education is essential to change, for education creates both new wants and the ability to satisfy them. — Henry Steele Commager

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

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

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

The greatest danger that threatens us is neither heterodox thought nor orthodox thought, but the absence of thought. — Henry Steele Commager

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

The greatest danger we face is not any particular kind of thought. The greatest danger we face is absence of thought. — Henry Steele Commager

It is probably safe to say that over a long period of time, political morality has been as high as business morality. — Henry Steele Commager

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

Life Lessons by Henry Steele Commager

1. Henry Steele Commager taught us to have an open mind and to be willing to learn from history. He believed that we can learn from our mistakes and use them to create a better future.
2. He also encouraged us to be open to new ideas and to think critically about the world around us. He believed that by understanding the past, we can make better decisions for the future.
3. Finally, he taught us to be tolerant and understanding of different cultures and beliefs, and to strive for a more peaceful and just world.