Sidney Hook Quotes
A democracy delegates leadership. It cannot surrender to it.... The genuinely democratic community rightfully views the hero with suspicion and is notoriously ungrateful.
Sidney Hook, 1902-1989, Political Philosopher, Speech, "Where Have All the Heroes Gone?" Washington DC, February 27, 1977
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Some people think that this quotation was partially copied from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. However, he gave this speech more than a decade earlier. Lincoln might have been familiar with it. His statue is in the U. S. Capitol.
Sidney Hook was an American philosopher of the pragmatist school known for his contributions to the philosophy of history, the philosophy of education, political theory, and ethics. After embracing communism in his youth, Hook was later known for his criticisms of totalitarianism, both fascism and Marxism–Leninism. A pragmatic social democrat, Hook sometimes cooperated with conservatives, particularly in opposing Marxism–Leninism. After World War II, he argued that members of such groups as the Communist Party USA and Leninists like democratic centralists could ethically be barred from holding the offices of public trust because they called for the violent overthrow of democratic governments.
