The so-called lessons of history are for the most part the rationalizations of the victors. History is written by the survivors. Max Lerner More Quotes by Max Lerner More Quotes From Max Lerner Do not confuse your vested interests with ethics. Do not identify the enemies of your privilege with the enemies of humanity. Max Lerner privilege humanity enemy There are almost no limits to the discoveries of how the human brain operates in illness and health, in sleep and waking and dreaming, in calm and under tension. The question is how far man can put these discoveries to use without using them not for cure but for power. Max Lerner dream sleep men America shudders at anything alien, and when it wants to shut its mind against any man's ideas it calls him a foreigner. Max Lerner men america ideas Despite the success cult, men are most deeply moved not by the reaching of the goal but by the grandness of the effort involved in getting there - or failing to get there. Max Lerner best-effort congratulations men The tourist who moves about to see and hear and open himself to all the influences of the places which condense centuries of human greatness is only a man in search of excellence. Max Lerner greatness travel moving We cannot live by power, and a culture that seeks to live by it becomes brutal and sterile. But we can die without it. Max Lerner brutal power culture The problem of freedom in America is that of maintaining a competition of ideas, and you do not achieve that by silencing one brand of idea. Max Lerner competition america ideas In our rich consumers' civilization we spin cocoons around ourselves and get possessed by our possessions. Max Lerner cocoons environmental civilization Power politics existed before Machiavelli was ever heard of; it will exist long after his name is only a faint memory. What he did, like Harvey, was to recognize its existence and subject it to scientific study. Max Lerner names memories science A world technology means either a world government or world suicide. Max Lerner technology suicide mean A politician wouldn't dream of being allowed to call a columnist the things a columnist is allowed to call a politician Max Lerner columnists politician dream Somehow life doesn't always pay off to those who are most insistent. Max Lerner pay Next to the striking of fire and the discovery of the wheel, the greatest triumph of what we call civilization was the domestication of the human male. Max Lerner glowing fire discovery The way to prevent war is to bend every energy toward preventing it, not to proceed by the dubious indirection of preparing for it. Max Lerner energy war way You may call for peace as loudly as you wish, but where there is no brotherhood there can in the end be no peace. Max Lerner brother wish peace If you mean by capitalism the God-given right of a few big corporations to make all the decisions that will affect millions of workers and consumers and to exclude everyone else from discussing and examining those decisions, then the unions are threatening capitalism. Max Lerner unions decision mean There is no crime in the cynical American calendar more humiliating than to be a sucker. Max Lerner calendars cynical crime It is not science that has destroyed the world, despite all the gloomy forebodings of the earlier prophets. It is man who has destroyed man. Max Lerner destruction men world The taste of democracy becomes a bitter taste when the fullness of democracy is denied. Max Lerner bitter democracy taste Some of the more fatuous flag-waving Americans are in danger of forgetting that you can't extract gratitude as you would extract a tooth; that unless friendship is freely given, it means nothing and less than nothing. Max Lerner teeth gratitude mean
