Whatever the intellectual is too certain of, if he is healthily playful, he begins to find unsatisfactory. The meaning of his intellectual life lies not in the possession of truth but in the quest for new uncertainties. — Richard Hofstadter Copy Share Image
“purity of a sort is easily had where responsibilities are not assumed. The” — Richard Hofstadter Copy Share
It is a part of the intellectual's tragedy that the things he most values about himself and his work are quite unlike those society… — Richard Hofstadter Copy Share
It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies but to be one. — Richard Hofstadter Copy Share
“The truly creative mind is hardly ever so much alone as when it is trying to be sociable. The” — Richard Hofstadter Copy Share
“They thought man was a creature of rapacious self-interest, and yet they wanted him to be free- free, in essence, to contend, to engage… — Richard Hofstadter Copy Share
It is a poor head that cannot find plausible reason for doing what the heart wants to do. — Richard Hofstadter Copy Share
It is possible that the distinction between moral relativism and moral absolutism has sometimes been blurred because an excessively consistent practice of either leads… — Richard Hofstadter Copy Share
To be sick and helpless is a humiliating experience. Prolonged illness also carries the hazard of narcissistic self-absorption. — Richard Hofstadter Copy Share
There has always been in our national experience a type of mind which elevates hatred to a kind of creed; for this mind, group… — Richard Hofstadter Copy Share
The intellectual's ... playfulness, in its various manifestations, is likely to seem to most men a perverse luxury; in the United States the play… — Richard Hofstadter Copy Share
“...the danger that American society as a whole will over-esteem intellect or assign it such a transcendent value as to displace other legitimate values… — Richard Hofstadter Copy Share
To be confronted with a simple and unqualified evil is no doubt a kind of luxury… — Richard Hofstadter Copy Share
“When one considers American history as a whole, it is hard to think of any very long period in which it could be said… — Richard Hofstadter Copy Share
If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess… — Richard Hofstadter Copy Share
