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Henry Steele Commager Biography

Henry Steele Commager (October 25, 1902 – March 2, 1998) was an American historian. As one of the most active and prolific liberal intellectuals of his time, with 40 books and 700 essays and reviews, he helped define modern liberalism in the United States.

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Henry Steele Commager Quotes

The American people. . . have a stake in non-conformity. For they know that the American genius is non-conformist.

American, Conformity, Genius, Know, People, Stake

The decision for complete religious freedom and for separation of church and state in the eyes of the rest of the world was perhaps the most important decision reached in the New World. Everywhere in the western world of the 18th century, church and state were one; and everywhere the state maintained an established church and tried to force conformity to its dogma.

Religious, Eye, Decision, State, Tried

A free society cherishes nonconformity. It knows from the non-conformist, from the eccentric, have come many of the great ideas.

Cherish, Come, Eccentric, Ideas, Knows, Nonconformity

The greatest danger we face is not any particular kind of thought. The greatest danger we face is absence of thought.

Absence, Danger, Faces, Kind, Thought

The English love for privacy is proverbial, and has not been exaggerated. A stranger who strikes up a conversation is looked upon with suspicion - unless he happens to be an American, when his ignorance of good manners is indulged.

Good, Good Man, Ignorance, Privacy, Strikes

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.

Bill, Constitutional, Government, Mean, Protect, Rights

And we wonder what can be that 'philosophy of education' which believes that young people can be trained to the duties of citizenship by wrapping their minds in cotton wool.

Believe, Believes, People, Philosophy, Wrapping, Young

We cannot have a society half slave and half free; nor can we have thought half slave and half free. If we create an atmosphere in which men fear to think independently, inquire fearlessly, express themselves freely, we will in the end create the kind of society in which men no longer care to think independently or to inquire fearlessly.

Men, Thinking, Atmosphere, Care, Freely

Whether history will judge this war to be different or not we cannot say. But this we can say with certainty: A government and a society that silences those who dissent is one that has lost its way.

Government, Judge, Judging, Silences, War

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.

Authority, Equate, Men, Patriotic, Thinking

History is organized memory, and the organization is all important!

Memories, Organization, Important, Organized, History, Memory

America was born of revolt, flourished on dissent, became great through experimentation.

America, Became, Experimentation, Libertarian, Liberty, Revolt

Its awfully hard to be the son of a great man and also of a half-crazy woman.

Awfully, Crazy, Men, Son, Woman

We should not forget that our tradition is one of protest and revolt and that it is stultifying to celebrate the rebels of the past. . . while we silence the rebels of the present.

Past, Present, Rebels, Silence, Tradition, War

Education is essential to change, for education creates both new wants and the ability to satisfy them.

Education, Essentials, Want, Creates, Change

Change does not necessarily assure progress, but progress implacably requires change.

Inspirational, Progress And Change, Progress, Assure, Change, Implacably

It is probably safe to say that over a long period of time, political morality has been as high as business morality.

Business, Long, Morality, Period, Political

What every college must do is hold up before the young the spectacle of greatness.

College, Greatness, Spectacle, Young

Censorship always defeats it own purpose, for it creates in the end the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.

Real, Exercise, Censorship In Books, Purpose, Incapable

It seems fair to say that while the moral standards of the nineteenth century persisted almost unchanged into the twentieth, moral practices changed sharply, and that though the standards of the nineteenth century persisted the institutions that had sustained them and the sanctions that had enforced them lost influence and authority.

Changed, Influence, Moral, Practice, Standards, Sustained

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