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Intellectualism, though by no means confined to doubters, is often the sole piety of the skeptic.

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
Piety
Confined
Sole
Though
Means
Often
Doubters
Mean
Intellectualism
Skeptic

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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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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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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.
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The role of third parties is to sting like a bee, then die.
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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 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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Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege.
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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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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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