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Many colleges of liberal arts and the researches of many scholars in the humanities and the social studies are important only to those whose livelihood depends upon them.

— Robert Maynard Hutchins The Great Conversation (1952)

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More quotes by Robert Maynard Hutchins

The great problem of our time is moral, intellectual, and spiritual.

Education for Freedom (1943)

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.

Criticisms that I have mentioned come to the same thing: that liberal education is too good for the people.

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

The aim of human beings and human societies, if there is one, is material comfort. Freedom is simply doing what you please. The only common principle that we are urged to have is that there are no principles at all.

Education for Freedom (1943)

The rise of experimental science has not made the Great Conversation irrelevant. ... Science itself is part of the Great Conversation.

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

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