Quotes from Louis Fischer

Biography is history seen through the prism of a person.

A person may be smaller in success than in defeat; it depends on what he is trying to do

At the root of innumerable wrongs in our civilization is the discrepancy between word, creed and deed. It is the weakness of churches, states, parties, and persons. It gives men and institutions split personalities.

We live, he [Gandhi] felt, not in order to feed, clothe, shelter and pamper the body; we provide for the body in order to live. Life begins after the needs of the body have been met, yet how many people ruin life for the sake of rich living. The soul, alas, needs a temporary abode, but a clean mud hut will do as well as a palace, indeed better, for when the physical absorbs the lion's share of a man's effort the spirit languishes, life loses content, and discontent appears.

History is the chronicle of divorces between creed and deed.