14 Quotes & Sayings By Max Lerner

Max Lerner was born in New York City, the son of a Russian Jew who had left a small town in Ukraine to make a living as a garment worker in New York. His father's family name was Lerner, and the family called themselves "Lerer." Max attended public schools and graduated from Hamilton College in 1938. He received his law degree from New York University in 1942, and worked as a trial lawyer until he enlisted as an army captain in 1943. In 1945 he was discharged with the rank of lieutenant colonel Read more

In 1948 he married Esther Rothblatt, with whom he had four children. In 1951 he enrolled as a doctoral student at Columbia University, where he earned his doctorate in 1954.

What counted was not the facts but the fears.
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What counted was not the facts but the fears. Max Lerner
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The crime of book purging is that it involves a rejection of the word. For the word is never absolute truth, but only man’s frail and human effort to approach the truth. To reject the word is to reject the human search. Max Lerner
3
Every man has two counties--his own and America. Max Lerner
4
God is what man finds that is divine in himself. God is the best way man can behave in the ordinary occasions of life and the farthest point to which man can stretch himself. Max Lerner
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What is dangerous about tranquillizers is that whatever peace of mind they bring is packaged peace of mind. Where you buy a pill and buy peace with it you get conditioned to cheap solutions instead of deep ones. Max Lerner
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Despite the success cult men are most deeply moved not by the reaching of the goal but by the grandness of effort involved in getting there-or failing to get there. Max Lerner
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I have a simple principle for the conduct of life - never to resist an adequate temptation. Max Lerner
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The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt. Max Lerner
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The real sadness of fifty is not that you change so much but that you change so little. Max Lerner
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You may call for peace as loudly as you wish, but where there is no brotherhood there can in the end be no peace. Max Lerner
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Despite the success cult, men are most deeply moved not by the reaching of the goal but by the grandness of the effort involved in getting there - or failing to get there. Max Lerner
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Either men will learn to live like brothers, or they will die like beasts. Max Lerner
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The problem of freedom in America is that of maintaining a competition of ideas, and you do not achieve that by silencing one brand of idea. Max Lerner