57 Quotes by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

History is, indeed, an argument without end.

What we need is a rebirth of satire, of dissent, of irreverence, of an uncompromising insistence that phoniness is phony and platitudes are platitudinous.

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.

Clarity in language depends on clarity in thought.

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.

Honest history is the weapon of freedom.

Science and technology revolutionize our lives, but memory, tradition and myth frame our response.

The broad liberal objective is a balanced and flexible “mixed economy,” thus seeking to occupy that middle ground between capitalism and socialism whose viability has so long been denied by both capitalists and socialists.

The passion for tidiness is the historian’s occupational disease.