Alfred Whitney Griswold Quotations

The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.

The divine spark leaps from the finger of God to the finger of Adam, whether it takes ultimate shape in a law of physics or a law of the land, a poem or a policy, a sonata or a mechanical computer.

Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail

In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.

Things have got to be wrong in order that they may be deplored.

It is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not.

A college education is not a quantitative body of memorized knowledge salted away in a card file. It is a taste for knowledge, a taste for philosophy, if you will; a capacity to explore, to question to perceive relationships, between fields of knowledge and experience.

This man, Comrades, has a nice smile, but he has iron teeth.

The liberal arts inform and enlighten the independent citizen of a democracy in the use of his own resources.... They enlarge his capacity for self-knowledge and expand his opportunities for self-improvement.... They are the wellsprings of a free society.

A Socrates in every classroom.

Liberal learning is both a safeguard against false ideas of freedom and a source of true ones.

Could Hamlet have been written bya committee, or the Mona Lisa painted by a club? Could the NewTestament have been composed as a conference report?

There will be certain things in a man that have to be won, not forced; inspired, not compelled.

Certain things we cannot accomplish... by any process of government. We cannot legislate intelligence. We cannot legislate morality. No, and we cannot legislate loyalty, for loyalty is a kind of morality.

There are certain things in a man that have to be won, not forced; inspired, not compelled. Among these are many, I should say most, of the things that constitute the good life. All are essential to democracy. All are proof against its enemies.

If appeasing our enemies is not the answer, neither is hating them.... Somewhere between the extremes of appeasement and hate there is a place for courage and strength to express themselves in magnanimity and charity, and this is the place we must find.

Self-respect cannot be hunted. It cannot be purchased. It is never for sale.

Self-respect cannot be hunted. It cannot be purchased. It is never for sale. It cannot be fabricated out of public relations. It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that, knowing the good, we have done it; knowing the beautiful, we have served it; knowing the truth we have spoken it

Could Hamlet have been written by a committee, or the "Mona Lisa" painted by a club? Could the New Testament have been composed as a conference report? Creative ideas do not spring from groups. They spring from individuals. The divine spark leaps from the finger of God to the finger of Adam, whether it takes ultimate shape in a law of physics or a law of the land, a poem or a policy, a sonata or a mechanical computer.

The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.

Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.