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Liberal education was aristocratic in the sense that it was the education of those who enjoyed leisure and political power. If it was the right education for those who had leisure and political power, then it is the right education for everybody today.

— Robert Maynard Hutchins Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

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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)

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.

The Great Conversation (1952)

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)

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