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It is ironic that the United States should have been founded by intellectuals, for throughout most of our political history, the intellectual has been for the most part either an outsider, a servant or a scapegoat.

Richard Hofstadter

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Richard Hofstadter
Age: 54 †
Born: 1916
Born: August 6
Died: 1970
Died: October 24
Historian
University Teacher
Buffalo
New York
Political
Founded
Part
Servant
States
Throughout
Intellectual
Scapegoat
Either
Outsider
Politics
Intellectuals
United
Outsiders
History
Ironic

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In using the terms play and playfulness, I do not intend to suggest any lack of seriousness quite the contrary. Anyone who has watched children, or adults, at play will recognize that there is no contradiction between play and seriousness, and that some forms of play induce a measure of grave concentration not so readily called forth by work.
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Intellectualism, though by no means confined to doubters, is often the sole piety of the skeptic.
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The nation seems to slouch onward into its uncertain future like some huge inarticulate beast, too much attainted by wounds and ailments to be robust, but too strong and resourceful to succumb.
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To the zealot overcome by his piety and to the journeyman of ideas concerned only with his marketable mental skills, the beginning and end of ideas lies in their efficacy with respect to some goal external to intellectual processes.
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A university's essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism - a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else.
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The intellectual ... may live for ideas, as I have said, but something must prevent him from living for one idea, from becoming obsessive or grotesque. Although there have been zealots whom we may still regard as intellectuals, zealotry is a defect of the breed and not of the essence.
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The tradition of the new. Yesterday's avant-gard-experiment is today's chic and tomorrow's cliche.
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The role of third parties is to sting like a bee, then die.
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Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege.
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As with the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of truth is itself gratifying whereas the consummation often turns out to be elusive.
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To the reactionary ear every whispered criticism of the elite classes has always sounded like the opening shot of an uprising.
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Intellect needs to be understood not as some kind of claim against the other human excellences for which a fatally high price has to be paid, but rather as a complement to them without which they cannot be fully consummated.
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