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
