Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr.was an American historian, social critic, and public intellectual. The son of the influential historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and a specialist in American history, much of Schlesinger's work explored the history of 20th-century American liberalism. In particular, his work focused on leaders such as Harry S. Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy. In the 1952 and 1956 presidential campaigns, he was a primary speechwriter and adviser to the Democratic presidential nominee...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth15 October 1917
CountryUnited States of America
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. quotes about
The great religious ages were notable for their indifference to human rights... not only for acquiescence in poverty, inequality, exploitation and oppression, but also for enthusiastic justifications for slavery, persecution, abandonment of small children, torture, and genocide... Moreover, religion enshrined hierarchy, authority, and inequality... It was the age of equality that brought about the disappearance of such religious appurtenances as the auto-da-fe and burning at the stake.
The military struggle may frankly be regarded for what it actually was, namely a war for independence, an armed attempt to imposethe views of the revolutionists upon the British government and large sections of the colonial population at whatever cost to freedom of opinion or the sanctity of life and property.
Every President reconstructs the Presidency to meet his own psychological needs.
The only President who clearly died of overwork was Polk, and that was a long time ago. Hoover, who worked intensely and humorlessly as President, lived for more than thirty years after the White House; Truman, who worked intensely and gaily, lived for twenty
Anti-intellectualism has long been the anti-Semitism of the businessman.
I trust that a graduate student some day will write a doctoral essay on the influence of the Munich analogy on the subsequent history of the twentieth century. Perhaps in the end he will conclude that the multitude of errors committed in the name of Munich may exceed the original error of 1938.
The very discovery of the New world was the by-product of a dietary quest.
Man generally is entangled in insoluble problems; history is consequently a tragedy in which we are all involved, whose keynote is anxiety and frustration, not progress and fulfilment.
People who claw their way to the top are not likely to find very much wrong with the system that enabled them to rise.
Troubles impending always seem worse than troubles surmounted, but this does not prove that they really are.
Righteousness is easy in retrospect.
The genius of impeachment lay in the fact that it could punish the man without punishing the office.
Total separation of church and state was considered the best safeguard for the health of each. As [Andrew] Jackson explained, in refusing to name a fast day, he feared to 'disturb the security which religion now enjoys in this country, in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.'
There is far less to the Presidency, in terms of essential activity, than meets the eye.