Change does not necessarily assure progress, but progress implacably requires change. Education is essential to change, for education creates both new wants and the ability to satisfy them.
—Henry Steele Commager
Topics: Change
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.
—Henry Steele Commager
Topics: Criticism
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
Topics: History
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
Topics: Censorship
History is a story. If history forgets or neglects to tell a story, it will inevitably forfeit much of its appeal and much of its authority as well.
—Henry Steele Commager
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Frank Moore Colby American Writer, Editor
- Henry Adams American Historian
- Robert Thurman American Buddhist Scholar
- Richard Hofstadter American Historian
- Thomas Wolfe American Novelist
- Richard Neustadt American Historian
- W. Edwards Deming American Statistician
- Carol Dweck American Psychologist
- Mark Van Doren American Poet, Critic
- James Harvey Robinson American Historian
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