Henry Steele Commager
Henry Steele Commager
Henry Steele Commagerwas an American historian who helped define modern liberalism in the United States, for two generations, through his 40 books and 700 essays and reviews. His principal scholarly works were his 1936 biography of Theodore Parker; his intellectual history The American Mind: An Interpretation of American Thought and Character since the 1880s, which focuses on the evolution of liberalism in the American political mind from the 1880s to the 1940s, and his intellectual history Empire of Reason: How...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth25 October 1902
CountryUnited States of America
Henry Steele Commager quotes about
Change does not necessarily assure progress, but progress implacably requires change.
Censorship always defeats it own purpose, for it creates in the end the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.
The Bill of Rights was not written to protect governments from trouble. It was written precisely to give the people the constitutional means to cause trouble for governments they no longer trusted.
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.
A free society cherishes nonconformity. It knows from the non-conformist, from the eccentric, have come many of the great ideas.
Education is essential to change, for education creates both new wants and the ability to satisfy them.