Quotes by Max Lerner

“What counted was not the facts but the fears.”

“The crime of book purging is that it involves a rejection of the word. For the word is never absolute truth, but only mans frail and human effort to approach the truth. To reject the word is to rej...”

“Every man has two counties--his own and America.”

“The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt.”

“The real sadness of fifty is not that you change so much but that you change so little.”

“You may call for peace as loudly as you wish, but where there is no brotherhood there can in the end be no peace.”

“Despite the success cult, men are most deeply moved not by the reaching of the goal but by the grandness of the effort involved in getting there - or failing to get there.”

“Either men will learn to live like brothers, or they will die like beasts.”

“The problem of freedom in America is that of maintaining a competition of ideas, and you do not achieve that by silencing one brand of idea.”

“God is what man finds that is divine in himself. God is the best way man can behave in the ordinary occasions of life and the farthest point to which man can stretch himself.”

“What is dangerous about tranquillizers is that whatever peace of mind they bring is packaged peace of mind. Where you buy a pill and buy peace with it you get conditioned to cheap solutions instea...”

“Despite the success cult men are most deeply moved not by the reaching of the goal but by the grandness of effort involved in getting there-or failing to get there.”

“I have a simple principle for the conduct of life - never to resist an adequate temptation.”

“Despite the success cult men are most deeply moved not by the reaching of the goal but by the grandness of effort involved in getting there-or failing to get there.”

“The so-called lessons of history are for the most part the rationalizations of the victors. History is written by the survivors.”

“A President is best judged by the enemies he makes when he has really hit his stride.”

“The crime of book purging is that it involves a rejection of the word... To reject the word is to reject the human search.”

“Years from now, when historians can look back and put our time into perspective, they will say that of its towering figures—more truly great than generals and diplomats, business grants and labor g...”

“Life is a protracted struggle against the Adversary, who is man himself.”

“Marilyn Ferguson is the best reporter today on the farther reaches of investigation into the life and human sciences. She represents a new kind of investigative journalist—not a sleuth after the co...”