Anti-intellectualism has long been the anti-Semitism of the businessman.
Man generally is entangled in insoluble problems; history is consequently a tragedy in which we are all involved, whose keynote is anxiety and frustration, not progress and fulfilment.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the human condition, suggesting that we often face complex problems that lead to anxiety rather than fulfillment.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. highlights the inherent struggles of humanity, where individuals are caught in dilemmas that seem unsolvable. The quote suggests that instead of witnessing progress and achieving satisfaction, people are more frequently confronted with anxiety and frustration. This perspective offers a somber view of history, portraying it not as a tale of triumph but as a continuous struggle against overwhelming challenges.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used during a discussion about historical events and their impact on society.
More from Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
All quotes βThere is no more dangerous thing for a democracy than a foreign policy based on presidential preventive war.
Science and technology revolutionize our lives, but memory, tradition and myth frame our response.
The genius of impeachment lay in the fact that it could punish the man without punishing the office.
Clarity in language depends on clarity in thought.
In view of the tide of religiosity engulfing a once secular republic it is refreshing to be reminded by Freethinkers that free thought and skepticism are robustly in the American tradition. After all the Founding Fathers began by omitting God from the American Constitution.
Similar quotes
We believe deep down that we've lost something precious and are seeking it outside ourselves, never realizing that we are carrying it within us wherever we go.
The people who pretend that dying is rather like strolling into the next room always leave me unconvinced. Death, like birth, must be a tremendous event.
I think the O.J. Simpson trial was a revelation about the ongoing patterns of racial difference in American society.
She always imagined that evil played out on a large canvas- wars, concentration camps, gas chambers, the partitioning of nations. Now she realized that evil had a domestic side, and its very banality protected it from exposure.
I am quite ready to acknowledge . . . that I ought to be grieved at death, if I were not persuaded that I am going to other gods who are wise and good (of this I am as certain as I can be of any such matters), and to men departed who are better than those whom I leave behind. And therefore I do not grieve as I might have done, for I have good hope that there is yet something remaining for the dead.
Every situation--nay, every moment--is of infinite worth; for it is the representative of a whole eternity.