James Harvey Robinson Quotes

Our goal, simply stated, is to be the best.

Speech gave man a unique power to lead a double life, he could say one thing and do another.

Each of us is great insofar as we perceive and act on the infinite possibilities which lie undiscovered and unrecognized about us.

Partisanship is our great curse. We too readily assume that everything has two sides and that it is our duty to be on one or the other.

Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.

Curiosity is idle only to those who fail to realize that it may be a very rare and indispensable thing.

History ... may be regarded as an artificial extension and : broadening of our memories and may be used to overcome the natural bewilderment of all unfamiliar situations.

I am opposed to censorship. Censors are pretty sure fools. I have no confidence in the suppression of everyday facts.

To become historically-minded is to be grown-up.

In its amplest meaning History includes every trace and vestige of everything that man has done or thought since first he appeared on the earth.

We continue to think of new things in old ways.

We find it hard to believe that other people's thoughts are as silly as our own, but they probably are.

Few of us take the pains to study the origin of our cherished convictions.

We are incredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but if someone tries to take them from us, we defend them with almost an illicit passion.

Man has long found solace in good talk to offset bad conduct.

There is nothing else anything like so interesting to ourselves as ourselves.

Rationalizing is the self-exculpation which occurs when we feel ourselves, or our group, accused of misapprehension or error.

Mere lack of success does not discredit a method, for there are many things that determine and perpetuate our sanctified ways of doing things besides their success in reaching their proposed ends.

Greatness, in the last analysis, is largely bravery - courage in escaping from old ideas and old standards and respectable ways of doing things.

We find it hard to believe that other people's thoughts are as silly as our own but they probably are.

Greatness in the last analysis is largely bravery-courage in escaping from old ideas and old standards.