110+ Nat Hentoff Quotes On Education, Religion And Democracy

Nat Hentoff was an American historian, author, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist. He wrote for The Village Voice and was a long-time contributor to The New Yorker. He was known for his strong advocacy of First Amendment rights, his opposition to censorship and his support of civil liberties. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Nat Hentoff on education, religion, democracy.

Top 10 Nat Hentoff Quotes

1. I always wanted to be a lawyer,but I certainly never wanted to be a trapeze performer.
2. There is a seamless web to life.. all life is sacred.
3. A lot of people in the adult population have a very limited idea as to why they are Americans, why we have a First Amendment or a Bill of Rights.
4. My parents were Orthodox Jews but not very regular Orthodox Jews. I was bar mitzvahed and all that. But God was hardly ever mentioned in my family. Franklin D. Roosevelt was.
5. As Harry Blackmun said when he wrote Roe v. Wade, `Once a child is born, the child has basic constitutional rights: due process, equal protection of the laws.'
6. We are going to have a long period where people are accustomed or conditioned to what's going on now with the raping of the Fourth Amendment.
7. A particular moment - and I'm not, to this day, quite sure how I feel about it - I had always wanted to be in the law books - you know, Hentoff vs. something or other.
8. Fortune ought to be a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master.
9. We live in the village. We have a summer place in Westport, Connecticut. We don't spend a lot on all kinds of things. But I have no complaints.
10. In England, you have what I would call government-imposed euthanasia

Nat Hentoff Short Quotes

• I write a syndicated column for The Washington Post that goes to about 200, 250 papers.
• I don't like to feel intimidated by where I make a living.
• The person who has the strong ownership of free speech is the one who owns the press.
• I went to a lecture of [Arthur Koestler ] once, I never met him.
• My father had always been a traveling salesman - New England, the South, whatever.
• [Bill Shawn] didn't edit the writers very strongly, but he knew what he wanted.
• I once did a - the first piece on Malcolm X that anyone had ever seen in the - white press.
• I was in the back of the book [in the The Reporter] doing music.
• I've been reading since I could read, which was about four or five years old.
• Abortion happens because of economic circumstances.

Nat Hentoff Quotes About Education

I was lecturing at the Columbia Journalism School of Education. I asked them about what was happening to the Fourth Amendment. I said, "By the way, do you know what is in the Fourth Amendment?" One student responded, "Is that the right to bear arms?" It's hard to believe these are bright students. — Nat Hentoff

We hear talk now about reforming public education. There are billions of dollars at stake for such a reform. But I have not heard Arne Duncan, who is the U.S. Education Secretary, mention once the civic illiteracy in the country. — Nat Hentoff

The need for education for the individual student should be recognized... home, neighborhood. But instead of that, we have the future being determined by standardized testing. — Nat Hentoff

Nat Hentoff Famous Quotes And Sayings

Means and ends are central. If your means are corroded, your ends will be corroded. And if you're fighting to preserve liberty and you use means that eviscerate our liberties, the end will be corroded, too. — Nat Hentoff

Americans have only the dimmest notion of what their constitutional freedoms are - and what it took to get them...[and] the willingness to surrender what we're supposed to be fighting for is a recurring part of our history. — Nat Hentoff

My contact with [Cato] was strange. They're ideologues, like Trotskyites. All questions must be seen and solved within the true faith of libertarianism, the idea of minimal government. And like Trotskyites, the guys from Cato can talk you to death. — Nat Hentoff

Why has slamming a ball with a racquet become so obsessive a pleasure for so many of us? It seems clear to me that a primary attraction of the sport is the opportunity it gives to release aggression physically without being arrested for felonious assault. — Nat Hentoff

The Fourth Amendment is on life support and the chief agent of that is the National Security Agency. — Nat Hentoff

Every life is different; being pro-life is not only about saving the fetus, being pro-life is about all the stages of life. — Nat Hentoff

I got Joan Baez to talk and Alan Ginsberg and some of the guys in the band. And by the end of the piece, another emissary came and said, `Bob [Dylan] is willing to speak to you now.' And I said with great pleasure, `No, thanks. The piece is over.' — Nat Hentoff

[Madness] happened so frequently. I think what I was most maddest about - and it's in the book [Speaking Freely: A Memoir] - when the House and the Senate, back in 1984, were debating a bill that would - at least delay and maybe stop some of the ex - summary execution of disabled children - infants. And the Down syndrome kids and other kids had been, in some cases, routinely let die, to use the euphemism. — Nat Hentoff

[Cardinal John O'Connor] had [my wife] Margot and me over for drinks a couple of times. That was something I never could have envisioned back when I was a kid in Boston, that a cardinal and I would be, if not breaking bread, at least breaking Scotch. — Nat Hentoff

Sandra Day O'Connor - once she said that there are - there were no public schools in America until the 18th century, and she overlooked my alma mater because we started - I say we - in 1635. And among the people who went there - and they're on - the walls in the auditorium, the names are: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Cotton Mather, Benjamin Franklin, except he split when he was 10 years old to go to work. — Nat Hentoff

[I have ] two boys. One, Nicholas, is a criminal defense attorney in Phoenix in which he - gets into - a lot of very controversial cases. He has sued Sheriff Arpaio, the famous sheriff who keeps people in tents, gives them green bologna and the like. My other son Tom is with Williams & Connolly in Washington, where he does intellectual property defamation cases. — Nat Hentoff

I know [Arthur Koestler] fought in the Spanish Civil War. He was in prison, I think, in Spain and in Russia. He came to the United States; that's when I saw him in the mid-1940s. — Nat Hentoff

He has absolutely no judicial supervision of all of this [ invasions of privacy ]. So all in all, [Barack] Obama is a disaster. — Nat Hentoff

We disagree heavily on abortion [with Margot Hentoff]. — Nat Hentoff

When I approached one of his secretaries for an interview, I was told that Bob [Dylan] didn't want to see me anymore because of what my wife Margot [Hentoff] had written. — Nat Hentoff

In terms of the Patriot Act, and all the other things he has pledged he would do, such as transparency in government,[Barack] Obama has reneged on his promises. — Nat Hentoff

Now that is dangerous, when the people don't know what's happening to their Constitution. — Nat Hentoff

[William Shawn] took over The Voice and tried to turn it into New York Magazine - very glitzy covers that promised practically nothing in terms of what was inside, very rushed paper anymore. You - not very contemplative, thoughtful or whatever. — Nat Hentoff

It was a competitive examination [in Boston Latin School]. Poor kids, Brahmans, middle-class kids. The masters, as the teachers were called, didn't give a damn about - how we felt, what was - things like at home. I mean, this goes against the current grain. All they thought about was: `You're here. You made the exam. You can do the work. And if you can't, we'll throw you out.' — Nat Hentoff

A reporter is never put off by somebody not wanting to be interviewed. — Nat Hentoff

I've always been amused by [Bob] Dylan; I don't think he's been amused by me. — Nat Hentoff

My chronology is terrible. [Work with William Shawn] must have some ago. It was after he was fired by Newhouse. After New - when Newhouse bought The New Yorker, he said in one of those grand press — Nat Hentoff

The immigration bill - the new immigration bill - [Bill Clinton] has stripped the courts, which Congress can do under the leadership of the president, so that people who had a right to asylum or to petition - for asylum who were legal residents are now unable to go through because that part of the bill has been taken out. — Nat Hentoff

I had written a book called "Boston Boy" some years ago, and that took me from the time I could speak, I guess, in Boston through the time when I finally left to come to New York. One was understanding and coping with anti-Semitism. Boston, at the time, was the most anti-Semitic city in the country. And I found out when I was an adolescent that you have to be crazy to go out after dark all by yourself; you'd get your head bashed in. — Nat Hentoff

I think at least two of [my kids] - and I'm - I better not speak them by name because I'm not sure where they are these days, but at least two of them believe in some kind of higher force. The - another is an atheist and the other is still pondering. — Nat Hentoff

[Barack] Obama has little, if any, principles except to aggrandize and make himself more and more important. — Nat Hentoff

A.J. [Muste] was a - as he likes to say, a radical pacifist. — Nat Hentoff

I say this because the Left has taken what passes for their principles as an absolute religion. They don't think anymore. They just react. When they have somebody like [Barack] Obama whom they put into office, they believed in the religious sense and, of course, that is a large part of the reason for their silence on these issues. — Nat Hentoff

They [FBI] had a lot of clippings, a lot of articles I'd written. And to me the - the funniest one was - I had done a piece for Playboy about J. Edgar Hoover. — Nat Hentoff

In that respect, Martin Luther King, whom A.J.[Muste] advised in the civil rights movement, was also a radical pacifist. — Nat Hentoff

[Barack Obama to be] much worse [than George W. Bush]. — Nat Hentoff

I'm working on "Living the Bill of Rights," and it's about people - well, it starts with Brennan and Douglas as people who not only live the Bill of Rights, but try to shape the reason for that. — Nat Hentoff

I write a column for The Village Voice, which I've done since time immemorial, and occasionally - and books. And I occasionally write minor notes for record albums and occasional articles. — Nat Hentoff

[Bill Clinton] was the man, as a matter of fact, who, in terms of the Communications Decency Act, which would have made the Internet, the whole concept of cyberspace, vulnerable to rampant censorship - he pushed that bill, and I know the man in the Justice Department whom he persuaded - the guy didn't want to lose his job - to write the bill. — Nat Hentoff

That term was used with hyperbole about the parts of the health care bill where doctors are mandated, if people are on Medicare and of a certain age or in serious physical condition, to counsel them on their end-of-life alternatives. I don't believe that was a death panel. — Nat Hentoff

Bob Dylan was really mad with my wife. I had asked by Rolling Stone - the only assignment I ever had for them - to do a story on the Rolling Thunder Review, which was Bob Dylan, Alan Ginsberg, Joan Baez and a host of stars. My wife, some weeks before, had written in The New York Times that The Kid wasn't The Kid anymore and he wasn't all that winning anymore. — Nat Hentoff

Miranda [Hentoff] is a complete musician. She's a composer, a singer. She writes scripts along - with her projects. And she's a superb teacher. Her teaching pupils have ranged from Itzhak Perlman to Sting. — Nat Hentoff

Even civics classes have almost disappeared from the schools. So things have not gotten any better. — Nat Hentoff

I wish [my wife] would [work] because - especially now the kind of - I mean, honesty is hardly the word. She writes with a ferocity of clarity that - nobody else around has now. — Nat Hentoff

Congressman [Richard ] Icord headed a House on American activities committee. It was called the House Internal Security Committee. And he put out a report, and he named a number of very destructive people who lectured at colleges and left arson in their wake and did other terrible things. And he mentioned me and he ascribed to me three organizations to which I'd never belonged, and I decided I would do something about this. — Nat Hentoff

Duke Ellington had a song, "What Am I Here For?" - this is what being pro-life is. — Nat Hentoff

I've I call [Cardinal John O'Connor] from time to time and he calls me. And when I think there's something he ought to think about doing, I call him and he usually does it. — Nat Hentoff

That [race] is still part of what [Barack Obama] is riding on. Except that, too, is diminishing. — Nat Hentoff

[George W.] Bush was led astray and we were led astray. — Nat Hentoff

The whole politically correct movement, if it - if that's what it is, was spawned by liberals. So I try to avoid categorizing myself. — Nat Hentoff

When the ACLU took my case and we got a ruling I think, for the first time, they could - the Congress could put out the report internally but they couldn't put it out at taxpayers' expense around the country. And I felt odd about that because I, in a way, I was interfering with free speech, but then, you can't always win. — Nat Hentoff

You have an electorate [in America] that wants to see people who are not tough on crime. — Nat Hentoff

The main jobs would be The New Yorker, The Village Voice, The Washington Post and - I'm thinking of The Reporter when Max Askeli was there, but I got fired from The Reporter. — Nat Hentoff

When I speak to students, I tell them why we have a First Amendment. I tell them about the Committees of Correspondence. I tell them how in a secret meeting of the Raleigh Tavern in Virginia, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, who did not agree with each other, started a Committee of Correspondence. — Nat Hentoff

The Voice has been politically correct in many of its aspects since before that term was ever used. — Nat Hentoff

The second wife [Trudi Bernstein] - the best part of that union, our two daughters, and that lasted about five years. — Nat Hentoff

I would bet there is no place in the United States where the First Amendment would survive intact. — Nat Hentoff

[My father] was very impressed when he saw "Death of a Salesman," I must say. He recognized himself to some extent. — Nat Hentoff

We need to keep trying to rescue the Constitution from the President. — Nat Hentoff

[Barack Obama's ] only principle is his own aggrandizement. This is a very dangerous mindset for a president to have. — Nat Hentoff

I like [John Cardinal O'Connor] a lot. He - I started a - to know him - when I asked William Shawn at The New Yorker, `Sh - can I do a profile of Cardinal O'Connor?' He said, `All right. Find out what he's like.' So I went to his office, and I heard somebody - and it turned out to be O'Connor - yelling outside, and I've never heard him since raise his voice. — Nat Hentoff

I've never met anybody quite like [Bill Shawn]. He created - and I'm sure it was conscious - an aura about him of quietude. — Nat Hentoff

The general unemployment rate is going to continue for a long time and for all of us. I have never heard so many heart-wrenching stories of all kinds of people all across the economic spectrum. — Nat Hentoff

The people I admire are those who keep on producing and working and going on. — Nat Hentoff

When I was a kid in Boston, it was one of the most anti-Semitic cities in the country. If you were living in the ghetto as I was, the Jewish ghetto part of Roxbury, and you went out alone at night, you might be subject to having people attacking you for being a Christ killer. — Nat Hentoff

A.J.[Muste] died in the late '60s, I think. He was 81, something like that. — Nat Hentoff

I spent a lot of time studying our Founders and people like Samuel Adams and the original Tea Party. What Adams and the Sons of Liberty did in Boston was spread the word about the abuses of the British. They had Committees of Correspondence that got the word out to the colonies. We need Committees of Correspondence now, and we are getting them. — Nat Hentoff

There are enough people who are starting to be actively involved that we can turn things around. And we need to encourage others to become involved. — Nat Hentoff

That is what is happening with the Tea Parties. I wrote a column called "The Second American Revolution" about the fact that people are acting for themselves as it happened with the Sons of Liberty which spread throughout the colonies. That was a very important awakening in this country. — Nat Hentoff

In the recent Virginia election, the black vote diminished. Now why was that? I think a lot of black folks are wondering what this guy is really going to do, not only for them but for the country. If the country is injured, they will be injured. That may be sinking in. — Nat Hentoff

The present Stimulus Bill sets up the equivalent commission in the United States similar to that which is in England. — Nat Hentoff

Counting the ones I've co-edited, I guess about 28 or 29 [books I've written]. — Nat Hentoff

[John] McCarthy's regime was ended by Senators who realized that he had gone too far. What we have now may be more insidious. — Nat Hentoff

I live in the Village right near NYU, which is taking over most of the Village. I've lived there for most of my time in New York. One of the things I like about the Village is, it's considered the kind of area where you can't have skyscrapers or, actually, many tall buildings. So you can see the sky which, I think, is a benefit. — Nat Hentoff

After New - when Newhouse bought The New Yorker, he said in one of those grand press conferences that `Bill Shawn will stay here as long as he wants to be here.' Well, he wanted to be here until he died, but he wasn't allowed to. — Nat Hentoff

Bill Clinton outshines John Adams in that regard. — Nat Hentoff

[Margot Hentoff] thinks - first of all, she - this I hear from a lot of people beside her. She thinks that men have no business getting into this argument at all unless they're going to be pro-choice. But it turns out that a fair number of fetuses are male, and besides that, we are all one part of humankind, it seems to me. — Nat Hentoff

[Barack Obama] is a man who is causing us and will cause us a great deal of harm constitutionally and personally. — Nat Hentoff

Margot [Hentoff] used to write regularly for The Voice, for The New York Review of Books, for Harper's Bazaar, and she really had the most distinctive writing style, even more than mine, than I've ever seen in this business. — Nat Hentoff

I read like everybody - like every other writer. — Nat Hentoff

Malcolm X made it very clear that if somebody goes after you - whether it's cops or not - you have to defend yourself. But he was not an advocate for violence the way the Black Panthers were. — Nat Hentoff

Young people get very excited when they hear why they are Americans. It is not hard to do. — Nat Hentoff

[A.J. Muste] was very influenced - in - influential in the peace movement, in the civil rights movement. — Nat Hentoff

The media has been very bad about informing us about what is going on. They focus on surface things. They do not focus enough on the fact that the Fourth Amendment is on life support and that we need a return to transparency in government. — Nat Hentoff

What we have now in America is a surveillance society. — Nat Hentoff

[Bill Clinton] has called for expanded wiretaps for the FBI. — Nat Hentoff

Do not categorize about music. You take each musician at the time and open yourself to that musician. — Nat Hentoff

Throughout [Barack] Obama's career, he promised to limit the state secrets doctrine which the Bush-Cheney administration had abused enormously. — Nat Hentoff

[A.J. Muste] was - he - I don't know what he finally came out believing in, but it was some kind of higher being. — Nat Hentoff

Bob Dylan was uncomfortable being known as just a protest singer. He wanted to go back into himself and do what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it. — Nat Hentoff

Even though the clock didn't work, we kept the clock because of how we felt about Franklin D. Roosevelt . A lot since then I knew about FDR I wouldn't have been so enthusiastic. — Nat Hentoff

I say personally because I am 84 years old, and [Barack Obama's] is the first administration that has scared me in terms of my lifespan. — Nat Hentoff

I don't think [Bill Clinton] does anything - I don't think it's ill will. I don't think he's evil in the sense that he hates the Bill of Rights. He does what he figures will help him politically. — Nat Hentoff

Being pro-life is an essential part of being a writer. — Nat Hentoff

Liberalism isn't quite as liberal as it pretends to be. And it goes through my adventures with the FBI during the anti-war period and the civil rights period. — Nat Hentoff

A good many people voted for [Barack] Obama, and I'm not only talking about the black vote. A lot of people voted for Obama because of our history of racial discrimination in this country. — Nat Hentoff

The death panel issue arose with Tom Daschle, who was originally going to be the Health Czar. Daschle became enamored with the British system and wrote a book about health care, which influenced President [Barack] Obama. — Nat Hentoff

I had not been very kind to J. Edgar Hoover. And the field agent had written on - it was sent directly to Hoover - that - the director should see this - `And, besides, Hentoff is a lousy writer.' And I thought that went a bit far. — Nat Hentoff

[My wife Margot] was the - I guess, the coordinator or the production manager [of The Jazz Review], and we got to know each other and we married. — Nat Hentoff

I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had — Nat Hentoff

Life Lessons by Nat Hentoff

1. Nat Hentoff's work emphasizes the importance of civil liberties and the power of the individual to stand up for their beliefs.
2. He also highlights the need for an engaged citizenry to ensure the protection of our rights and freedoms.
3. His work serves as a reminder that we all have a responsibility to speak out against injustice and to seek out the truth.