Sidney Hook Quotations

Wisdom is a kind of knowledge. It is knowledge of the nature, career, and consequences of human values.

Tolerance always has limits - it cannot tolerate what is itself actively intolerant.

Those who say that life is worth living at any cost have already written an epitaph of infamy, for there is no cause and no person that they will not betray to stay alive.

Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system.

Students rarely disappoint teachers who assure them in advance that they are doomed to failure.

Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness.

Before impugning an opponent's motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments.

Fear of death has been the greatest ally of tyranny past and present.

Philosophy, most broadly viewed, is the critical survey of existence from the standpoint of value.

I was guilty of judging capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations; capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature.

Where an intelligent grasp of principles requires a knowledge of mathematics, its fundamental ideas should be presented in such a way that students carry away the sense of mathematics not only as a tool for the solution of problems but as a study of types of order, system, and language.

It still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs about the existence of God in any recognizable sense continuous with the great systems of the past, religious doctrines constitute a speculative hypothesis of an extremely low order of probabil

Russell's prose has been compared by T.S. Eliot to that of David Hume's. I would rank it higher, for it had more color, juice, and humor. But to be lucid, exciting and profound in the main body of one's work is a combination of virtues given to few philosophers. Bertrand Russell has achieved immortality by his philosophical writings.

[A]nti-Semitism was rife in almost all varieties of socialism.

Life has meaning for anyone who takes an interest in it.

If one shoots at a king, one must not miss.

The mob that hails the man on horseback, the Caesars and conquering heroes, does not retain its freedoms for long.

Everyone recognizes a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. . . Wisdom is a kind of knowledge. It is knowledge of the nature, career, and consequences of human values. Since these cannot be separated from the human organism and the social scene, the moral ways of man cannot be understood without knowledge of the ways of things and institutions.

A liberal education will impart an awareness of the amazing and precious complexity of human relationships. Since those relationships are violated more often out of insensitiveness than out of deliberate intent, whatever increases sensitiveness of perception and understanding humanizes life.

Wisdom is an affair of values, and of value judgments. It is intelligent conduct of human affairs.

One of the central assumptions of the concept of democracy, perhaps its most central assumption, is that by and large human beings are better judges of their own interests.... The operating maxim of the democratic ideology is, "Whoever wears the shoe knows best where it pinches.

Religious tolerance has developed more as a consequence of the impotence of religions to impose their dogmas on each other than as a consequence of spiritual humility in the quest for understanding first and last things.

No one who accepts the sovereignty of truth can be a foot soldier in a party or movement. He will always find himself out of step.

Stupidity is sometimes the greatest of historical forces.

The next time anyone asks you "What is Bertrand Russell's philosophy?" the correct answer is "What year, please?"

Religious freedom in an open society has the best prospects of flourishing to the extent that it expresses itself as freedom of religious inquiry.

To deny me the right to err is therefore to deny me the right to believe.

Nonetheless, it still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs, religious doctrines constitute a speculative hypothesis of an extremely low order of probability.

In contrast to totalitarianism, democracy can face and live with the truth about itself.

Noam Chomsky skittles and skithers all over the political landscape to distract the reader’s attention from the plain truth.

To serve the public interest is not the same as being a servant of public opinion.

The difference between science and religion is that the former wishes to get rid of mysteries whereas the latter worships them.

The easiest rationalization for the refusal to seek the truth is the denial that truth exists.

To silence criticism is to silence freedom.