Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Nicholas Murray Butler (American Philosopher)

Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947,) an American philosopher, diplomat, and educator, made significant contributions to academia and international affairs, playing a pivotal role in shaping American education during the early 20th century.

Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Butler completed his undergraduate studies at Columbia College in 1882 and continued as a graduate fellow in philosophy, earning his doctorate in 1884 after a year in Paris and Berlin.

Critiquing prevailing pedagogical methods, Butler later founded the Industrial Education Association and played a crucial role in establishing Teachers College, Columbia University. As President of Columbia University 1902–45, he implemented educational reforms and enhanced its international reputation as a center of research and scholarship.

A staunch defender of humanism in education, Butler opposed trends like vocationalism and behaviorism, denouncing them as the new barbarism. Notable published works include True and False Democracy (1907,) exploring his views on democracy and critiquing populist movements. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1921 for promoting the idea of a League of Nations, his book The International Mind (1912) delved into international relations and the importance of collective security.

As a diplomat, Butler served at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, contributing to the formation of the League of Nations. Despite his efforts, opposition in the U. S. Senate prevented the nation’s participation. He played a key role in establishing the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, serving as its trustee and president (1925–45,) and also presided over the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1928–41.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Nicholas Murray Butler

The analytical geometry of Descartes and the calculus of Newton and Leibniz have expanded into the marvelous mathematical method
—Nicholas Murray Butler
Topics: Mathematics

There are five tests of the evidence of education—correctness and precision in the use of the mother tongue; refined and gentle manners, the result of fixed habits of thought and action; sound standards of appreciation of beauty and of worth, and a character based on those standards; power and habit of reflection; efficiency or the power to do.
—Nicholas Murray Butler
Topics: Education

Necessity does the work of courage.
—Nicholas Murray Butler
Topics: Necessity, Courage

The history of the building of the American nation may justly be described as a laboratory experiment in understanding and in solving the problems that will confront the world tomorrow.
—Nicholas Murray Butler
Topics: America

Nothing so good as a university education, nor worse than a university without its education.
—Nicholas Murray Butler
Topics: Education

The youth of today and the youth of tomorrow will be accorded an almost unequaled opportunity for great accomplishment and for human service.
—Nicholas Murray Butler
Topics: Youth

Many peoples’ tombstones should read ‘Died at 30, buried at 60.’
—Nicholas Murray Butler

Every attempt, by whatever authority, to fix a maximum of productive labor by a given worker in a given time is an unjust restriction upon his freedom and a limitation of his right to make the most of himself in order that he may rise in the scale of the social and economic order in which he lives. The notion that all human beings born into this world enter at birth into a definite social and economic classification, in which classification they must remain permanently through life, is wholly false and fatal to a progressive civilization.
—Nicholas Murray Butler
Topics: Achievements, Class

The forty-four-hour week has no charm for me. I’m looking for a forty-hour day.
—Nicholas Murray Butler
Topics: Time Management, Value of Time

America is the best half-educated country in the world.
—Nicholas Murray Butler
Topics: America

Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress.
—Nicholas Murray Butler
Topics: Passion, Success, Achievement, Enthusiasm, Accomplishment, Courage, Positive Attitudes, Optimism, Health

The epitaphs on tombstones of a great many people should read: Died at thirty, and buried at sixty.
—Nicholas Murray Butler
Topics: Epitaphs

Perhaps we should comprehend these things better were it not for the persistence of the superstition that human beings habitually think. There is no more persistent superstition than this.
—Nicholas Murray Butler
Topics: Thought

An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less.
—Nicholas Murray Butler
Topics: Experts

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