Sidney Hook Quotes

21 quotes in 323 categories

• To silence criticism is to silence freedom.
• I was guilty of judging capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations; capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature.
• In contrast to totalitarianism, democracy can face and live with the truth about itself.
• Nonetheless, it still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs, religious doctrines constitute a speculative hypothesis of an extremely low order of probability.
• Noam Chomsky skittles and skithers all over the political landscape to distract the reader’s attention from the plain truth.
• The difference between science and religion is that the former wishes to get rid of mysteries whereas the latter worships them.
• A liberal education will impart an awareness of the amazing and precious complexity of human relationships. Since those relationships are violated more often out of…
• Everyone recognizes a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. . . Wisdom is a kind of knowledge. It is knowledge of the nature, career, and consequences…
• The mob that hails the man on horseback, the Caesars and conquering heroes, does not retain its freedoms for long.
• Before impugning an opponent's motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments.
• Those who say that life is worth living at any cost have already written an epitaph of infamy, for there is no cause and no…
• The easiest rationalization for the refusal to seek the truth is the denial that truth exists.
• If one shoots at a king, one must not miss.
• Wisdom is an affair of values, and of value judgments. It is intelligent conduct of human affairs.
• Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system.
• Tolerance always has limits - it cannot tolerate what is itself actively intolerant.
• Fear of death has been the greatest ally of tyranny past and present.
• Philosophy, most broadly viewed, is the critical survey of existence from the standpoint of value.
• Students rarely disappoint teachers who assure them in advance that they are doomed to failure.
• Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness.

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