Quotes by Peter Gay

About Peter Gay:

Peter Gay was an American historian, educator and author. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and former director of the New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers (1997–2003). Gay received the American Historical Association's (AHA) Award for Scholarly Distinction in 2004. He authored over 25 books, including The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, a multi-volume award winner; Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (1968), a bestseller; and the widely translated Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988).
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

My definition of modernism took a while to develop.

Peter Gay

Every historian has informally an anthropology, without ever using the word.

Peter Gay

My assumption is that fundamentally the picture of the human animal, as developed by Freud, is largely right.

Peter Gay

What interests me, and has always interested me, has been modernism.

Peter Gay

There is something very intriguing about, for example, the sense of accomplishment that a small child has, which you might be able to reduce to aggression and libido, but which might also have some independent existence.

Peter Gay

People seem to forget that one reason they are now thinking differently is Freud's legacy itself.

Peter Gay

To have a liberal temperament is a kind of psychological boon, To be able to understand that someone you disagree with is not just a terrible creature but somebody with whom you disagree.

Peter Gay

And my interest in history was, and remains, very strong: what I wanted was to understand certain things better by understanding them psychoanalytically.

Peter Gay

Author Bio

  • NamePeter Gay
  • Descriptionhistorian, author
  • AliasesPeter Joachim Fröhlich
  • BornJune 20, 1923
  • DiedMay 12, 2015
  • CountryGermany; United States Of America
  • ProfessionPsychologist; Cultural Historian; Historian; Writer
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; Geschwister-Scholl-Preis; National Book Award;