Quotes by Richard Hofstadter

About Richard Hofstadter:

Richard Hofstadter is ongoing, as modern critics profess admiration for the grace of his writing, and the depth of his insight.
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

They thought man was a creature of rapacious self-interest, and yet they wanted him to be free- free, in essence, to contend, to engage in an umpired strife, to use property to get property.

Richard Hofstadter

To be confronted with a simple and unqualified evil is no doubt a kind of luxury....

Richard Hofstadter

A university's essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism - a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else.

Richard Hofstadter

...the danger that American society as a whole will over-esteem intellect or assign it such a transcendent value as to displace other legitimate values is one that hardly troubles us.

Richard Hofstadter

It is ironic that the United States should have been founded by intellectuals, for throughout most of our political history, the intellectual has been for the most part either an outsider, a servant or a scapegoat.

Richard Hofstadter

The delicate thing about the university is that it has a mixed character, that it is suspended between its position in the eternal world, with all its corruption and evils and cruelties, and the splendid world of our imagination.

Richard Hofstadter

Author Bio

  • NameRichard Hofstadter
  • DescriptionAmerican historian
  • BornAugust 6, 1916
  • DiedOctober 24, 1970
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionHistorian; Political Scientist; Writer
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; Pulitzer Prize For History; Pulitzer Prize For General Non-Fiction