8 Quotes by Ralph Barton Perry

If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, it is not merely because evil deeds may be performed in the name of patriotism, but because patriotic fervor can obliterate moral distinctions altogether.

Ignorance deprives people of freedom because they do not know what alternatives there are. It is impossible to choose to do what one has never “heard of.”

What is needed in the present plight of mankind is not more science but a change of heart that shall move mankind to devote to constructive and peaceful purposes...

Indeed I am inclined to go so far as to say that the one cause for which one may properly make war is the cause of peace.

The English mind is intelligent rather than intellectual. The French are intellectual in the sense that the intellect is emancipated and left free to run its own course.

Voting is the least arduous of a citizen’s duties. He has the prior and harder duty of making up his mind.

I prefer credulity to skepticism and cynicism for there is more promise in almost anything than in nothing at all.

This insistence on “having his say upon the universe” is the profoundest motive of William James thinking as well as of his filial gratitude.