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There is far less to the Presidency, in terms of essential activity, than meets the eye.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
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Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Age: 89 †
Born: 1917
Born: October 15
Died: 2007
Died: February 28
Historian
University Teacher
Columbus
Ohio
Arthur Schlesinger Jr
Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr.
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
Essential
Essentials
Terms
Activity
Term
Eye
Less
Meets
Presidency
More quotes by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
The first rule of democracy is to distrust all leaders who begin to believe their own publicity.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
It is useful to remember that history is to the nation as memory is to the individual. As a person deprived of memory becomes disorientated and lost, not knowing where they have been or where they are going , so a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
History is full of surprises.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Anti-intellectualism has long been the anti-Semitism of the businessman.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
What we need is a rebirth of satire, of dissent, of irreverence, of an uncompromising insistence that phoniness is phony and platitudes are platitudinous.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
History is, indeed, an argument without end.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
What higher obligation does a President have than to explain his intentions to the people and persuade them that the direction he wishes to go is right?
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
People who claw their way to the top are not likely to find very much wrong with the system that enabled them to rise.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Economists are about as useful as astrologers in predicting the future (and, like astrologers, they never let failure on one occasion diminish certitude on the next).
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Self-righteousness in retrospect is easy--also cheap.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Total separation of church and state was considered the best safeguard for the health of each. As [Andrew] Jackson explained, in refusing to name a fast day, he feared to 'disturb the security which religion now enjoys in this country, in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.'
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
The basic human rights documents-the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man-were written by political, not by religious, leaders.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
The very discovery of the New world was the by-product of a dietary quest.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Almost all important questions are important precisely because they are not susceptible to quantitative answer.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
If we are to survive, we must have ideas, vision, and courage. These things are rarely produced by committees. Everything that matters in our intellectual and moral life begins with an individual confronting his own mind and conscience in a room by himself.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Few secret undertakings ever did any nation any good.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
I trust that a graduate student some day will write a doctoral essay on the influence of the Munich analogy on the subsequent history of the twentieth century. Perhaps in the end he will conclude that the multitude of errors committed in the name of Munich may exceed the original error of 1938.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
The use of history as therapy means the corruption of history as history.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
I don't think I have made as much of my life as I should have. I should have written more books.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
For most Americans the Constitution had become a hazy document, cited like the Bible on ceremonial occasions but forgotten in the daily transactions of life.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.