Quotes by Bernard Bailyn

About Bernard Bailyn:

Bernard Bailyn is an American historian, author, and professor specializing in U.S. Colonial and Revolutionary-era History. He has been a professor at Harvard University since 1953. Bailyn has won the Pulitzer Prize for History twice (in 1968 and 1987). In 1998 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected him for the Jefferson Lecture. He was a recipient of the 2010 National Humanities Medal.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

For "as great a blessing as government is," the Rev. Peter Whitney explained, "like other blessings, it may become a scourge, a curse, and severe punishment to a people." What made it so, what turned power into a malignent force, was not its own natu...

Bernard Bailyn

For the primary goal of the American Revolution which transferred American life and introduced a new era in human history, was not the overthrow or even the alteration of the existing social order but the preservation of political liberty threatened ...

Bernard Bailyn

Power always and everywhere had had a pernicious, corrupting effect upon men. It "converts a good man in private life to a tyrant in office." It acts upon men like drink: it "is known to be intoxicating in its nature"—"too intoxicating and liable t...

Bernard Bailyn

Author Bio

  • NameBernard Bailyn
  • DescriptionAmerican historian
  • BornSeptember 9, 1922
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Historian Of Modern Age; Historian
  • AwardsPulitzer Prize For History; National Humanities Medal; National Book Award