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Gertrude Himmelfarb

  • “... absolute liberty may also corrupt absolutely.”

  • “In its sentimental mode, compassion is an exercise in moral indignation, in feeling good rather than doing good ... In its unsentimental mode, compassion seeks above all to do good ...”

  • “Without will, without individuals, there are no heroes. But neither are there villains. And the absence of villains is as prostrating, as soul-destroying, as the absence of heroes.”

    • Gertrude Himmelfarb,
    • "Of Heroes, Villains, and Valets," On Looking Into the Abyss ()

  • “The 'real movement' of history, it turns out, is fueled not by matter but by spirit, by the will to freedom.”

    • Gertrude Himmelfarb,
    • "From Marx to Hegel," On Looking Into the Abyss ()

  • “... absolute liberty ... tends to corrupt absolutely.”

    • Gertrude Himmelfarb,
    • "Liberty: 'One Very Simple Principle'?" On Looking Into the Abyss ()

Gertrude Himmelfarb, U.S. historian, philosopher

(1922)

Also known as Bea Kristol.