“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“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“Either men will learn to live like brothers, or they will die like beasts.”
Max Lerner“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“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“The real sadness of fifty is not that you change so much but that you change so little.”
Max Lerner“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“I have a simple principle for the conduct of life - never to resist an adequate temptation.”
Max Lerner“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“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“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