Richard Hofstadter Quote

If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to some special and constricting idea. The effect is as observable in politics as in theology: the intellectual function can be overwhelmed by an excess of piety expended within too contracted a frame of reference.


p. 29 - Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1974)


If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to...

If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to...

If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to...

If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to...