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Alfred Whitney Griswold Quotes
1906–1963 United States
Alfred Whitney Griswold (27 October 1906 – 19 April 1963) was an American historian and educator. He served as 16th president of Yale University from 1951 to 1963, during which he built much of Yale's modern scientific research infrastructure, especially on Science Hill.
United States Academics Historians Also known as: Griswold, Alfred Whitney
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9 quotes
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?
Liberal learning is both a safeguard against false ideas of freedom and a source of true ones.
Self-respect cannot be hunted. It cannot be purchased.
In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.
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.
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.
A Socrates in every classroom.
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.
It is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not.
Misattributed
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