The greatest danger we face is not any particular kind of thought. The greatest danger we face is absence of thought.

The American people...have a stake in non-conformity. For they know that the American genius is non-conformist.

History is organized memory, and the organization is all important!

Every effort to confine Americanism to a single pattern, to constrain it to a single formula, is disloyalty to everything that is valid in Americanism.

History, we can confidently assert, is useful in the sense that art and music, poetry and flowers, religion and philosophy are useful. Without it - as with these - life would be poorer and meaner; without it we should be denied some of those intellectual and moral experiences which give meaning and richness to life. Surely it is no accident that the study of history has been the solace of many of the noblest minds of every generation.

History is a jangle of accidents, blunders, surprises and absurdities, and so is our knowledge of it, but if we are to report it at all we must impose some order upon it.

In the long run [censorship] will create a generation incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience.