# Quote — Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

> To the zealot overcome by his piety and to the journeyman of ideas concerned only with his marketable mental skills, the beginning and end of ideas lies in their efficacy with respect to some goal external to intellectual processes.

- Author: [Richard Hofstadter](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-hofstadter.md)
- Book: [Anti-Intellectualism in American Life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-hofstadter/anti-intellectualism-in-american-life.md)
- Page: 31
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Hofstadter#Anti-Intellectualism_in_American_Life_(1963)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-hofstadter/anti-intellectualism-in-american-life/to-the-zealot

## More from this book

> It is the historic glory of the intellectual class of the West in modern times that, of all the classes which could be called in any sense privileged, it has shown the largest and most consistent concern for the well-being of the classes which lie below it in the social scale.

p. 29 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-hofstadter/anti-intellectualism-in-american-life/it-is-the.md)

> Whatever the intellectual is too certain of, if he is healthily playful, he begins to find unsatisfactory. The meaning of his intellectual life lies not in the possession of truth but in the quest for new uncertainties.

p. 30 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-hofstadter/anti-intellectualism-in-american-life/whatever-the-intellectual.md)

> As with the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of truth is itself gratifying whereas the consummation often turns out to be elusive.

p. 30 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-hofstadter/anti-intellectualism-in-american-life/as-with-the.md)