Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Henry Steele Commager (American Historian)

Henry Steele Commager (1902–98,) born Henry Irving Commager, was an American historian and teacher. He was one of the most active and prolific liberal intellectuals of his time. His 40 books and 700 essays helped define modern liberalism in the U.S.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Commager was orphaned at ten and grew up with his maternal grandfather in Toledo, Ohio. He earned a Bachelor of Philosophy (1923,) Master of Arts (1924,) and Doctor of Philosophy (1928,) all from the University of Chicago.

Commager taught at New York University 1930–36, Columbia University 1936–56, and Amherst College-Massachusetts 1956–92.

Commager gained prominence for campaigns against McCarthyism and other abuses of government power In the 1940s and 1950s. Commager helped organize academic support for presidential candidates Adlai E. Stevenson (1952, 1956) and John F. Kennedy (1960.) He questioned the Vietnam War and was an outspoken detractor of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan.

Commager’s notable works are the biography of Theodore Parker: Yankee Crusader, Unitarian minister, transcendentalist, reformer, and abolitionist (1936,) The American Mind: An Interpretation of American Thought and Character since the 1880s (1950,) and Empire of Reason: How Europe Imagined and America Realized the Enlightenment (1977.)

Commager’s son Steele Commager was a classicist at Columbia University and wrote one of the leading books on the Roman poet Horace.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Henry Steele Commager

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

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