Henry Steele Commager: Danger

Henry Steele Commager was American historian. Explore interesting quotes on danger.
Henry Steele Commager: 54 quotes2 likes

“By insisting upon conformity in the intellectual arena and by threatening with disapproval all those who dissent or who give us unpopular advice, we are in danger of following the totalitarian philosophy—and the totalitarian mistakes.”

Henry Steele Commager

Source: Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent (1954), p. 34

“The greatest danger that threatens us is neither heterodox thought nor orthodox thought, but the absence of thought.”

Henry Steele Commager

Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent (1954)

“If government, or those in positions of power and authority, can silence criticism by the argument that such criticism might be misunderstood somewhere, there is an end to all criticism, and perhaps an end to our kind of political system. For men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.”

Henry Steele Commager

"The Problem of Dissent" in Saturday Review, Volume 48 (December 1965), p. 81; also read into the US Congressional Record (26 June 1969)

“This approach emphasizes what was once familiar enough to all Americans—and what we are now in danger of forgetting—that government derives its power from men; that rights of life and liberty are inalienable; that these rights are not something that government graciously confers upon men, but things no government can take away from men.”

Henry Steele Commager

Source: Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent (1954), p. 5