"The greatest danger that threatens us is neither heterodox thought nor orthodox thought, but the absence of thought."

--

Source : "Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent". Book by Henry Steele Commager, 1954.

Henry Steele Commager

#Absence Quotes #Danger Quotes #Orthodox Quotes

“The very gnarliest and hardest of hearts has some musical strings in it; but they are tuned differently in every one of us.”
“The Age of Reason has turned out to be the Age of Structure; a time when, in the absence of purpose, the drive for power as a value in itself has become the principal indicator of social approval. And the winning of power has become the measure of social merit.”
“What is acting but lying and what is good lying but convincing lying?”
“The end of confession is to tell the truth to and for oneself.”
“The earth's warmth under me, as I stretch out at night, is astonishing. It is like the warmth of another body that has absorbed the sun all day and now gives out again its store of heat. It is softer, darker than I could ever have believed, and when I take a handful of it and smell its extraordinary odors, I know suddenly what it is I am composed of, as if the energy that is in this fistful of black soil had suddenly opened, between my body and it, as between it and the green stalks, some corridor along which our common being flowed.”

Source : David Malouf (2012). “An Imaginary Life”, p.147, Random House
“Amateurs want to be right. Professionals want to make money.”
“You seldom, if ever, get lucky sitting down.”
“In the absence of love, there is nothing worth fighting for.”

You may also like:

Allan Nevins
Historian
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Historian
Bruce Catton
Historian
Edward Kennedy
Former United States Senator
James Bryce
British Politician
John Maurice Clark
Economist
Richard Hofstadter
Historian
Samuel Eliot Morison
Historian
Theodore Parker