Ralph Barton Perry Quotes

#1. What is needed in the present plight of mankind is not more science but a change of heart that shall move mankind to devote to constructive and peaceful purposes ...

Ralph Barton Perry

#2. The fundamental idea of modern capitalism is not the right of the individual to possess and enjoy what he has earned, but the ;thesis that the exercise of this right redounds to the general good.

Ralph Barton Perry

#3. Indeed I am inclined to go so far as to say that the one cause for which one may properly make war is the cause of peace.

Ralph Barton Perry

#4. If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, it is not merely because evil deeds may be performed in the name of patriotism, but because patriotic fervor can obliterate moral distinctions altogether.

Ralph Barton Perry

#5. This insistence on "having his say upon the universe" is the profoundest motive of William James thinking as well as of his filial gratitude.

Ralph Barton Perry

#6. Voting is the least arduous of a citizen's duties. He has the prior and harder duty of making up his mind.

Ralph Barton Perry

#7. Humanitarianism needs no apology. Unless we ... feel it toward all men without exception, we shall have lost the chief redeeming force in human history.

Ralph Barton Perry

#8. Ignorance deprives people of freedom because they do not know what alternatives there are. It is impossible to choose to do what one has never "heard of."

Ralph Barton Perry

#9. A man can do his best only by confidently seeking (and perpetually missing) an unattainable perfection.

Ralph Barton Perry

#10. I prefer credulity to skepticism and cynicism for there is more promise in almost anything than in nothing at all.

Ralph Barton Perry

#11. The English mind is intelligent rather than intellectual. The French are intellectual in the sense that the intellect is emancipated and left free to run its own course.

Ralph Barton Perry