Charles A. Beard quotes

Charles A. Beard was an influential American historian and political scientist, known for his progressive interpretations of American history. His work emphasized the economic motivations behind the U.S. Constitution and political institutions. He greatly impacted the study of history and public policy through his writings and teachings. Here are 18 of his quotes:

You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.

Charles A. Beard

All the lessons of history in four sentences: 1) Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power; 2) The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small; 3) The bee fertilizes the flower it robs; 4) When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Charles A. Beard

I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and women trample themselves in the mire and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amid the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best in our curious heritage prevail.

Charles A. Beard

Four sentences summarizing the lessons of History.

Charles A. Beard

And if the experience of natural science is any guide, then as the science of administration advances, we may reasonably expect it to take on an increasingly deterministic character. As research, scientific societies, and the exchanges of knowledge and hypotheses by natural scientists have advanced the exactness of knowledge in the domain of natural science, so we may expect research, administrative societies, and the exchanges among administrators to advance the exactness of knowledge in the domain of administration.

Charles A. Beard

If I were compelled to state in a single sentence the most significant contribution of our movement to modern civilization, I should say that it is the application of the idea of continuous and experimental research, found so effective in economic enterprise, to the business of public administration intimately and in a deep-thrusting sense, a contribution to the processes by which modern mankind is striving with all its resources to emancipate itself from the tyranny of rules of thumb and the blind regimen of nature, becoming conscious of its destiny as an all conquering power.

Charles A. Beard

This body of administrative literature can be taught to young men and women; perhaps also to the aged, if they are not hopeless. And it is possible by tests to discover whether or how far the process of communicating and imparting administrative knowledge has been successful, [although] not precisely in all cases. Moreover, and this is highly important, young men and women who have more or less mastered the principles, maxims, and axioms of administrative science can now, by what is called in-training, fortify their formal knowledge by living experiences in and with administration. There is, then, a science of administration, in the sense in which I have used the term, and it can be taught, learned, and used.

Charles A. Beard

The administrator is more like the engineer who constructs a power plant, that is, he is concerned with the realization of conscious human purposes by the conscious use of human beings and materials. It is true that the mere student of administration may be just an observer, but he does not merely observe natural, unconscious, and automatic operations. He observes the formulation of human purposes, consciously and deliberately and operations designed to effect given results. And he sees calculations of results in advance realized later in practice with a high degree of approximation. The degree of approximation between advance calculations and results is not often, if ever, as exact as in the case of a hydro-electric plant, but it is constantly exact enough for practical purposes.

Charles A. Beard

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power.

Charles A. Beard

The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small.

Charles A. Beard

It is in silence, denial, evasion and suppression that danger really lies, not in open and free analysis and discussion ... everywhere there seems to be a fear of reliance upon that ancient device so gloriously celebrated by John Milton three hundred years ago - the device of unlimited inquiry.

Charles A. Beard

What hope lies anywhere save in the widest freedom to inquire and expound - always with respect to the rights and opinions of others?

Charles A. Beard

It is always becoming something else and those who criticize it and the acts done under it, as well as those who praise, help to make it what it will be tomorrow.

Charles A. Beard

The continuous and fairly efficient discharge of certain functions by government, central and local, is a necessary condition for the existence of any great society.

Charles A. Beard

Legislation respecting these functions, difficult as it is, is relatively easy as compared with the enforcement of legislation, that is, the effective discharge of these functions in their most minute ramifications and for the public welfare.

Charles A. Beard

Unless, as David Lilienthal has recently pointed out in an address on the Tennessee Valley Authority, an administrative system is so constructed and operated as to keep alive local and individual responsibilities, it is likely to destroy the basic well-springs of activity, hope, and enthusiasm necessary to popular government and to the following of a democratic civilization.

Charles A. Beard