Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr.was an American historian, social critic, and public intellectual. The son of the influential historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and a specialist in American history, much of Schlesinger's work explored the history of 20th-century American liberalism. In particular, his work focused on leaders such as Harry S. Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy. In the 1952 and 1956 presidential campaigns, he was a primary speechwriter and adviser to the Democratic presidential nominee...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth15 October 1917
CountryUnited States of America
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. quotes about
What higher obligation does a President have than to explain his intentions to the people and persuade them that the direction he wishes to go is right?
Few secret undertakings ever did any nation any good.
History, in the end, becomes a form of irony.
Self-righteousness in retrospect is easy--also cheap,
The use of history as therapy means the corruption of history as history.
Almost all important questions are important precisely because they are not susceptible to quantitative answer.
Liberalism regards all absolutes with profound skepticism, including both moral imperatives and final solutions... Insistence upon any particular solution is the mark of an ideologue...
Television has spread the habit of instant reaction and stimulated the hope of instant results.
Expelled from individual consciousness by the rush of change, history finds its revenge by stamping the collective unconsciousness with habits and values.
I don't think I have made as much of my life as I should have. I should have written more books.
In Defense of the World Order . . . U.S. soldiers would have to kill and die.
There is no more dangerous thing for a democracy than a foreign policy based on presidential preventive war.
Excellence is the eternal quest. We achieve it by living up to our highest intellectual standards and our finest moral intuitions. In seeking excellence, take life seriously-but never yourself!
Brave men earn the right to shape their own destiny.