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Alfred Whitney Griswold
(27 Oct 1906 - 19 Apr 1963)
American historian and educator who was President of Yale University (1950-63).
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Science Quotes by Alfred Whitney Griswold (2 quotes)
Books won’t stay banned. They won’t burn. Ideas won’t go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.
— Alfred Whitney Griswold
From Essays on Education. In Alfred Whitney Griswold, 1906-1963: In Memoriam (1964), 24.
Could Hamlet have been written by a committee, or the “Mona Lisa” painted by a club? Could the New Testament have been composed as a conference report? Creative ideas do not spring from groups. They spring from individuals. The divine spark leaps from the finger of God to the finger of Adam, whether it takes ultimate shape in a law of physics or a law of the land, a poem or a policy, a sonata or a mechanical computer.
— Alfred Whitney Griswold
Baccalaureate address (9 Jun 1957), Yale University. In In the University Tradition (1957), 156.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
