For Rousseau and Mandeville the absence of a moral instinct meant the laws of society had no moral validity, they were nothing but the inventions of the cunning and the powerful, in order to maintain or to acquire an unnatural… — Gertrude Himmelfarb Copy Share Image
Without will, without individuals, there are no heroes. But neither are there villains. And the absence of villains is as prostrating, as soul-destroying, as the absence of heroes. — Gertrude Himmelfarb Copy Share Image
The footnote would seem to be the smallest detail in a work of history. Yet it carries a large burden of responsibility, testifying to… — Gertrude Himmelfarb Copy Share Image
“...when President Clinton, on the anniversary of his election, spoke in the church in Tennessee where Martin Luther King, Jr., had delivered his last… — Gertrude Himmelfarb Copy Share Image
As liberty of thought is absolute, so is liberty of speech, which is 'inseparable' from the liberty of thought. Liberty of speech, moreover, is… — Gertrude Himmelfarb Copy Share Image
The present illegitimacy ratio is not only unprecedented in the past two centuries; it is unprecedented, so far as we know, in American history… — Gertrude Himmelfarb Copy Share Image
“Stigmas as the corollaries of values. If work, independence, responsibility, respectability are valued, then their converse must be devalued, seen as disreputable.” — Gertrude Himmelfarb Copy Share Image
The real movement of history, it turns out, is fueled not by matter but by spirit, by the will to freedom. — Gertrude Himmelfarb Copy Share Image
Postmodernism entices us with the siren call of liberation and creativity, but it may be an invitation to intellectual and moral suicide. — Gertrude Himmelfarb Copy Share Image
In its sentimental mode, compassion is an exercise in moral indignation, in feeling good rather than doing good ... In its unsentimental mode, compassion… — Gertrude Himmelfarb Copy Share Image
The Marxist combination of materialism and determinism is fatally anti-humanistic. It denies a consciousness, a mind, that is independent of material conditions and class… — Gertrude Himmelfarb Copy Share Image
For Rousseau and Mandeville the absence of a moral instinct meant the laws of society had no moral validity, they were nothing but the… — Gertrude Himmelfarb Copy Share Image
