4 Quotes & Sayings By Edmund S Morgan

Edmund S. Morgan was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on July 20, 1889. After graduating from Yale University in 1915, he taught briefly at Colgate University and then at Amherst College. In 1921 he became a member of the faculty of the Department of History at Columbia University, where he taught until his retirement in 1972 Read more

His books include the Pulitzer Prizewinning book The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop, 1630-1649 (1957), which is recognized as a classic work of American historical writing. He also wrote the twelve-volume biography of Roger Williams titled Roger Williams: The Founder of Rhode Island (1954-1964).

1
The only way to make a library safe is to lock people out of it. As long as they are allowed to read the books 'any old time they have a mind to, ' libraries will remain the nurseries of heresy and independence of thought. They will, in fact, preserve that freedom which is a far more important part of our lives than any ideology or orthodoxy, the freedom that dissolves orthodoxies and inspires solutions to the ever-changing challenges of the future. I hope that your library and mine will continue in this way to be dangerous for many years to come. . Edmund S. Morgan
2
Freedom, inefficiency, and prosperity are not in it frequently found together, and it is seldom easy to distinguish between the first two. Edmund S. Morgan
3
The Indians, keeping to themselves, laughed at your superior methods and lived from the land more abundantly and with less labor than you did... And when your own people started deserting in order to live with them, it was too much... So you killed the Indians, tortured them, burned their villages, burned their cornfields... But you still did not grow much corn. Edmund S. Morgan