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As with the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of truth is itself gratifying whereas the consummation often turns out to be elusive.

— Richard Hofstadter

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More quotes by Richard Hofstadter

Intellectualism, though by no means confined to doubters, is often the sole piety of the skeptic.

Intellect is neither practical nor impractical; it is extra-practical.

Intellect needs to be understood not as some kind of claim against the other human excellences for which a fatally high price has to be paid, but rather as a complement to them without which they cannot be fully consummated.

The higher paranoid scholarship is nothing if not coherent — in fact the paranoid mind is far more coherent than the real world.

The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964)

But Prohibition was more than a symbol—it was a means by which the reforming energies of the country were transmuted into mere peevishness.

The Age of Reform: from Bryan to F.D.R (1955)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Richard Hofstadter (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.