Heywood Broun Quotes
We are under no delusions as to the innate goodness even of very small children. They are bad a great deal of the time, but before it has been knocked out of them, they see no limit to the potentialities of the human will. Theirs is the faith to move mountains, because they do not yet know the fearful heft of them.
Broun, Heywood. Seeing Things at Night. Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1921.
This is not only true of many philosophers but also true of many politicians as well.
This quote is often misinterpreted to mean that intellectuals can not complete large projects that require a great deal of time and effort. However, intellectuals have accomplished projects far bigger than building a cathedral. The Manhattan Project, resulting in the atomic bomb, the mapping of the human genome are but two. However, intellectuals would rarely put in the kind of an effort to build a cathedral because it would be very difficult to get enough of them to use that much effort of a good that one has to accept on faith.
Heywood Campbell Broun Jr. was an American journalist. He worked as a sportswriter, newspaper columnist, and editor in New York City. He founded the American Newspaper Guild, later known as The Newspaper Guild and now as The NewsGuild-CWA. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he is best remembered for his writing on social issues and his championing of the underdog. He believed that journalists could help right wrongs, especially social ills.
