Sidney Hook Quotes

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.

To silence criticism is to silence freedom.

The easiest rationalization for the refusal to seek the truth is the denial that truth exists.

Fear of death has been the greatest ally of tyranny past and present.

No one who accepts the sovereignty of truth can be a foot soldier in a party or movement. He will always find himself out of step.

To serve the public interest is not the same as being a servant of public opinion.

In contrast to totalitarianism, democracy can face and live with the truth about itself.

Stupidity is sometimes the greatest of historical forces.

Before impugning an opponent's motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments.

One of the central assumptions of the concept of democracy, perhaps its most central assumption, is that by and large human beings are better judges of their own interests.... The operating maxim of the democratic ideology is, "Whoever wears the shoe knows best where it pinches.

The mob that hails the man on horseback, the Caesars and conquering heroes, does not retain its freedoms for long.

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.

Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness.

The difference between science and religion is that the former wishes to get rid of mysteries whereas the latter worships them.

Religious tolerance has developed more as a consequence of the impotence of religions to impose their dogmas on each other than as a consequence of spiritual humility in the quest for understanding first and last things.

The next time anyone asks you "What is Bertrand Russell's philosophy?" the correct answer is "What year, please?"

Noam Chomsky skittles and skithers all over the political landscape to distract the reader’s attention from the plain truth.

[A]nti-Semitism was rife in almost all varieties of socialism.

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.

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 insensitiveness than out of deliberate intent, whatever increases sensitiveness of perception and understanding humanizes life.

Life has meaning for anyone who takes an interest in it.

Philosophy, most broadly viewed, is the critical survey of existence from the standpoint of value.

If one shoots at a king, one must not miss.

Everyone recognizes a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. . . Wisdom is a kind of knowledge. It is knowledge of the nature, career, and consequences of human values. Since these cannot be separated from the human organism and the social scene, the moral ways of man cannot be understood without knowledge of the ways of things and institutions.