49 quotes
When these extremists argued for "either-or," the Western tradition answered "both!"
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (1979)
When Rome fell, the Christian answer was, "Create our own communities."
Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals (1976)
To know is not too demanding: it merely requires memory and time. But to understand is quite a different matter: it requires intellectual ability and training, a self conscious awareness of what one is doing, experience in techniques of analysis and synthesis, and above all, perspective.
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (1979)
After years of work in both areas of study, I concluded that the social sciences were different, in many important ways, from the natural sciences, but that the same scientific methods were applicable in both areas, and, indeed, that no very useful work could be done in either area except by scientific methods.
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (1979)
For years I have told my students that I been trying to train executives rather than clerks. The distinction between the two is parallel to the distinction previously made between understanding and knowledge. It is a mighty low executive who cannot hire several people with command of more knowledge than he has himself.
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (1979)
Anyone who says that society can be run on the basis of everyone's trying to maximize his own greed is talking total nonsense. And to teach it in schools, and to go on television and call it the American way of life still doesn't make it true. Competition and envy cannot become the basis of any society or any community.
...a state is not the same thing as a society, although the Greeks and Romans thought it was. A state is an organization of power on a territorial basis.
Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals (1976)
We have now done what the Romans did when they started to commit suicide. We have shifted from an army of citizens to an army of mercenaries...
Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals (1976)
I came into history from a primary concern with mathematics and science. This has been a tremendous help to me as a person and as a historian, although it must be admitted it has served to make my historical interpretations less conventional than may be acceptable of many of my colleagues in the field.
The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (1979)