Randolph Bourne
American essayist (1886 to 1918); author of War and the Intellectuals.
Randolph Bourne did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Their wordsReligion, which was for so many centuries the most exigent and ubiquitous symbol of society’s demand for conformity, has lapsed in these later days and bequeathed most of its virus to the State.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Their wordsThe intellectuals, in other words, have identified themselves with the least democratic forces in American life.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Their wordsAn intellectual class that was wholly rational would have called insistently for peace and not for war.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Their wordsOur war followed, as all wars follow, a monstrous failure of diplomacy.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Our reading
Being intellectual does not necessarily mean suspending judgment; the intellect craves certainty
Their wordsIt is a mistake to suppose that intellectuality necessarily makes for suspended judgments. The intellect craves certitude.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Our reading
An endless war for democracy would crush a nation's most precious thing, its youth's idealism
Their wordsIf the enterprise goes on endlessly, the work, so blithely undertaken for the defense of democracy, will have crushed out the only genuinely precious thing in a nation, the hope and ardent idealism of its youth.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Their wordsIf the German people cannot effect their own political reorganization, nobody can do it for them. They would continue to prefer the native Hohenzollerns to the most liberal government imposed by their conquering enemies.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Our reading
Prolonging the war delays German democracy by making Germans cling to their military leaders
Their wordsThe prolongation of the war delays democracy in Germany by convincing the German people that they are fighting for their very existence and thereby forcing them to cling even more desperately to their military leaders.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Their wordsGuarding neutrality, we might have counted toward a speedy and democratic peace. In the war, we are a rudderless nation, to be exploited as the Allies wish, politically and materially, and towed, to their aggrandizement, in any direction which they may desire.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Their wordsOur war is teaching us that patriotism is really a superfluous quality in war. The government of a modern organized plutocracy does not have to ask whether the people want to fight or understand what they are fighting for, but only whether they will tolerate fighting.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Our reading
In war every government, democratic or autocratic, crushes whatever deflects energy from victory
Their wordsWar determines its own end—victory, and government crushes out automatically all forces that deflect, or threaten to deflect, energy from the path of organization to that end. All governments will act in this way, the most democratic as well as the most autocratic.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Their wordsWilling war means willing all the evils that are organically bound up with it.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Our reading
One must choose between the war and America's promise, because the war will impoverish it
Their wordsThe war—or American promise: one must choose. One cannot be interested in both. For the effect of the war will be to impoverish American promise.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Their wordsIt is not an arena of creative intelligence our country’s mind is now, but of mob-psychology.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Their wordsIf the war is too strong for you to prevent, how is it going to be weak enough for you to control and mold to your liberal purposes?
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Their wordsA philosophy of adjustment will not even make for adjustment. If you try merely to “meet” situations as they come, you will not even meet them.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Their wordsThe State is the organization of the herd to act offensively or defensively against another herd similarly organized.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Their wordsWar is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate coöperation with the Government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Their wordsWe cannot crusade against war without crusading implicitly against the State.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Their wordsThe State is not the nation, and the State can be modified and even abolished in its present form, without harming the nation.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book
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Their wordsCountry is a concept of peace, of tolerance, of living and letting live. But State is essentially a concept of power, of competition; it signifies a group in its aggressive aspects.
↗Untimely Papers (essays of 1917-1918, published 1919)gutenberg.org All 21 from this book