Alan Barth Quotes

• Thought that is silenced is always rebellious. Majorities, of course, are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous. Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions.

  Alan Barth

  Atheism, Liberty, Criticism

  "The Loyalty of Free Men". Book by Alan Barth, 1951.

  48 Copy quote

• The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free - which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state.

  Alan Barth

  Government, Church, Liberty

  "The Rights of Free Men: An Essential Guide to Civil Liberties". Book by Alan Barth, 1984.

  21 Copy quote

• Character assassination is at once easier and surer than physical assault; and it involves far less risk for the assassin. It leaves him free to commit the same deed over and over again, and may, indeed, win him the honors of a hero in the country of his victims.

  Alan Barth

  Country, Hero, Character

  "The Rights of Free Men: An Essential Guide to Civil Liberties". Book by Alan Barth, 1984.

  26 Copy quote

• Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions.

  Alan Barth

  Criticism, Delusion, Indispensable

  "The Loyalty of Free Men". Book by Alan Barth, 1951.

  8 Copy quote

• News is only the first rough draft of history.

  Alan Barth

  Rough Drafts, News, Firsts

  "The New Republic" by Herbert David Croly, volume 108, p.677, 1943.

  61 Copy quote

• Loyalty in a free society depends upon the toleration of disloyalty.

  Alan Barth

  Loyalty, Miscellaneous, Depends

  7 Copy quote

• Tolerance of diversity is imperative, because without it, life would lose its savor. Progress in the arts, in the sciences, in the patterns of social adjustment springs from diversity and depends upon a tolerance of individual deviations from conventional ways and attitudes.

  Alan Barth

  Art, Attitude, Spring

  6 Copy quote

• Thought that is silenced is always rebellious.

  Alan Barth

  Rebellious

  Alan Barth, James David Barber (1965). “Heritage of Liberty”

  4 Copy quote

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