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.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.Liberalism regards all absolutes with profound skepticism, including both moral imperatives and final solutions... Insistence upon any particular solution is the mark of an ideologue.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.I don't think I have made as much of my life as I should have. I should have written more books.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.Economists are about as useful as astrologers in predicting the future (and, like astrologers, they never let failure on one occasion diminish certitude on the next).
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.Those who are convinced they have a monopoly on The Truth always feel that they are only saving the world when they slaughter the heretics.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.Science and Technology revolutionize our lives, but memory, tradition and myth frame our response. Expelled from individual consciousness by the rush of change, history finds its revenge by stamping the collective unconscious with habits, values, expectations, dreams. The dialectic between past and future will continue to form our lives.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.