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Harvard University

private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and among the most prestigious.

Harvard University logo

Harvard alumni, faculty, and researchers have included numerous Nobel laureates and Fields Medal recipients, and more alumni have been members of the U.S. Congress, MacArthur Fellows, Rhodes Scholars (375), Marshall Scholars (255), and Fulbright Scholars than any other university in the United States.

Fair Harvard! we join in thy Jubilee throng,
And with blessings surrender thee o’er
By these Festival-rites, from the Age that is past,
To the Age that is waiting before. ~ Samuel Gilman
O Relic and Type of our ancestors’ worth,
That hast long kept their memory warm,
First flow’r of their wilderness! Star of their night!
Calm rising thro’ change and thro’ storm. ~ Samuel Gilman
Farewell! be thy destinies onward and bright!
To thy children the lesson still give,
With freedom to think, and with patience to bear,
And for Right ever bravely to live. ~ Samuel Gilman
Let not moss-covered Error moor thee at its side,
As the world on Truth’s current glides by,
Be the herald of Light, and the bearer of Love,
Till the stars in the firmament die. ~ Samuel Gilman
This is the feeder school to the halls of power. There's good stuff happening there but, by and large, the culture is one of nepotism and cronyism, and the most overpriced, overprivileged frat clubs imaginable. ~ Daniel Goldhaber
I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University. ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.
The University is a school of liberty as well as of learning; and events of the last few years have driven home the lesson that only in an atmosphere of liberty, and in a body politic that practises as well as preaches democracy, can learning flourish. ~ Samuel Eliot Morison
Standing on the threshold of her fourth century, the University asks of the State, freedom; of her sons, loyalty; of God, grace that she may be saved from the besetting sin of pride, wisdom to do his will, and power 'to advance Learning, and perpetuate it to Posterity.' ~ Samuel Eliot Morison
What I disliked most about Harvard was was that smug assumptions were too often treated as substitutes for evidence or logic. The idea seemed to be that if we bright and good fellows all believed something, it must be true. ~ Thomas Sowell


Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · See also · External links

Quotes

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B

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  • Harvard has ruined more niggers than bad liquor.
  • I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.
    • William F. Buckley, Jr.; 1963 statement, as quoted in The Quote Verifier : Who Said What, Where, and When (2006) by Ralph Keyes, p. 82
  • If future generations are to have that high regard for the achievement of the human mind which is essential to civilization, there must be a true reverence for learning in the community. It is not sufficient to train investigators and scholars, no matter how brilliant they may be; a large body of influential citizens must have a passionate interest in the growth of human knowledge. It is our ambition to inspire the undergraduates of Harvard College with an enthusiasm for creative scholarship and a respect for the accumulated intellectual treasures of the past. This is one way in which we perpetuate learning to posterity.
    • James Bryant Conant in his first annual report as President of Harvard, issued 8 January 1934, as quoted by by Samuel Eliot Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard (1936), Cambridge: Harvard University Press, seventh printing (1965), p. 485

C

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  • The facilities for student dining, athletic activity, and classroom learning that existed 30 years ago at Harvard University were Spartan compared to the opulent facilities that today’s students enjoy. Harvard has no option but to keep ratcheting up its attractiveness and, therefore, its cost structure in order to compete successfully against the likes of Stanford and Yale.
    • Clayton Christiansen, et al. Disrupting College How: Disruptive Innovation Can Deliver Quality and Affordability to Postsecondary Education. The Center for American Progress, February 2011

F

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G

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  • People have asked me where we stand. So, let me be clear. Our University rejects terrorism — that includes the barbaric atrocities perpetrated by Hamas. [...] Our University rejects hate — hate of Jews, hate of Muslims, hate of any group of people based on their faith, their national origin, or any aspect of their identify.
  • [Harvard] rejects the harassment or intimidation of individuals based on their beliefs [and] embraces a commitment to free expression.
  • That commitment extends even to views that many of us find objectionable, even outrageous. We do not punish or sanction people for expressing such views. [...] But that is a far cry from endorsing them.
  • [Rep Elise] Stefanik: ... And Dr. Gay at Harvard? Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no?
    [Dr Claudine] Gay: It can be depending on the context.
    Stefanik: What's the context?
    Gay: Targeted at an individual targeted, as at an individual?
    Stefanik: It's targeted at Jewish students, Jewish individuals. Do you understand your testimony is dehumanizing them? Do you understand that dehumanization is part of antisemitism? I will ask you one more time. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no?
    Gay: Antisemitic rhetoric when it crosses into conduct, that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation, that is actionable conduct, and we do take action.
  • William F. Buckley, Jr. once made the famous pronouncement that he would rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phonebook than by the combined faculties of Harvard and MIT. Now that we are ruled by the combined faculties of Harvard and MIT, you can see what he meant.
  • Fair Harvard! we join in thy Jubilee throng,
    And with blessings surrender thee o’er
    By these Festival-rites, from the Age that is past,
    To the Age that is waiting before.
    O Relic and Type of our ancestors’ worth,
    That hast long kept their memory warm,
    First flow’r of their wilderness! Star of their night!
    Calm rising thro’ change and thro’ storm.
    • Samuel Gilman, Harvard Class of 1811, in the first verse of "Fair Harvard", the alma mater of Harvard University, written in 1836 for Harvard's 200th anniversary.
  • Farewell! be thy destinies onward and bright!
    To thy children the lesson still give,
    With freedom to think, and with patience to bear,
    And for Right ever bravely to live.
    Let not moss-covered Error moor thee at its side,
    As the world on Truth’s current glides by,
    Be the herald of Light, and the bearer of Love,
    Till the stars in the firmament die.
    • Samuel Gilman, Harvard Class of 1811, in the fourth verse of "Fair Harvard". The final line of the fourth verse originally read "Till the stock of the Puritans die", but was revised in 2017.
  • It takes quite a bit of work (and a lot of luck) to acquire a level of fame. The question that might be worth asking is whether or not that effort is related to the quality of ideas underneath. Harvard has been around for nearly 400 years. That doesn't mean the brand name is worth as much as we might be inclined to believe.

K

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  • Transforming hereditary privilege into ‘merit,’ the existing system of educational selection, with the Big Three [Harvard, Princeton, and Yale] as its capstone, provides the appearance if not the substance of equality of opportunity. In so doing, it legitimates the established order as one that rewards ability over the prerogatives of birth. The problem with a ‘meritocracy,’ then, is not only that its ideals are routinely violated (though that is true), but also that it veils the power relations beneath it. For the definition of ‘merit,’ including the one that now prevails in America’s leading universities, always bears the imprint of the distribution of power in the larger society. Those who are able to define ‘merit’ will almost invariably possess more of it, and those with greater resources—cultural, economic and social—will generally be able to ensure that the educational system will deem their children more meritorious.
    • Jerome Karabel, The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (Houghton Mifflin: 2005), pp. 549-550
  • Communism in the United States would hardly be identified with the slums of lower Manhattan, the dust bowlers of Kansas, or the miners of Pennsylvania. The word communism rather evokes associations like professors of state colleges with thick lenses in their spectacles, parlor pinks with Harvard accents, bored Park Avenue hostesses, anemic little East Europeans in public libraries, "progressive" and "advanced" psychologists specialized in sexual disorders, and unbearably conceited "foreign" correspondents.
    • Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, writing under the pen name Francis Stewart Campbell (1943), Menace of the Herd, or, Procrustes at Large, Milwaukee, WI: The Bruce Publishing Company, p. 294

M

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  • Contrary to Indians’ self-congratulatory notion that India is vishwa guru (guru to the world), in reality it is Harvard that is the vishwa guru. And India is vishwa shishya (student), with many of its people serving as vishwa coolie (laborer), and vishwa sepoy (soldier) in this ecosystem.... What starts at Harvard does not stay at Harvard. It spreads deep into intellectual and policy institutions everywhere.
    • Malhotra, R. & Viswanathan V. (2022). Snakes in the Ganga : Breaking India 2.0.
  • Harvard blacklisted Narendra Modi before he became India’s prime minister, and continues to slam him personally as well as his party, the BJP, for every imaginable kind of human rights violation, even when he has been cleared by Indian courts. Another hypocrisy is Harvard’s claim to champion free speech, an argument it used to terminate Indian economics professor, Subramanian Swamy. Harvard’s complaint against him was over his statement that India’s Muslims had Hindu ancestors. This should have been debated at Harvard to nurture free thinking among its students. After all, Indian Muslims do not prefer calling their ancestors foreign invaders from the Middle East. Hence, who else could have been their ancestors if not the natives of India, i.e., Hindus?
    • Malhotra, R. & Viswanathan V. (2022). Snakes in the Ganga : Breaking India 2.0.
  • Challenging is the note of freedom that still rings out from the Harvard Yard, into a world by no means so eager to hear it as a century ago. The University is a school of liberty as well as of learning; and events of the last few years have driven home the lesson that only in an atmosphere of liberty, and in a body politic that practises as well as preaches democracy, can learning flourish. Standing on the threshold of her fourth century, the University asks of the State, freedom; of her sons, loyalty; of God, grace that she may be saved from the besetting sin of pride, wisdom to do his will, and power "to advance Learning, and perpetuate it to Posterity."
    • Samuel Eliot Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard (1936), Cambridge: Harvard University Press, seventh printing (1965), p. 489

N

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R

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  • Punishment for uttering politically incorrect ideas, often with little regard for fair procedure, has plagued Harvard students, faculty members, and even, in the eyes of some, one now-former Harvard president over the past two decades. The disgraceful action taken against Professor Swamy is par for the course.

S

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  • Beneath these specifically religious forces and permeating the whole community there is, I think, a vaguer but deeper religion- the faith in enlightenment, the aspiration to be just, the sympathy with the multiform thoughts and labors of humanity. This is surely the noblest aspiration, and one which unites us to all ages and places in which men have cultivated reason. No one, I am sure, who has felt this high passion and freely fostered it in these halls, will put any place above Harvard in his affection. Some universities have greater beauty and a richer past, some have maturer scholars and more famous teachers, Yale herself has more unity, more energy, and greater fitness to our present conditions. Harvard, instead of all these advantages, has freedom, both from external trammels and the pleasant torpor of too fixed a tradition. She has freedom and a single eye for the truth, and these are enough to secure for her, if the world goes well, an incomparable future.
    • George Santayana, in Harvard Monthly in 1892, as quoted by Samuel Eliot Morison in Three Centuries of Harvard (1936), Cambridge: Harvard University Press, seventh printing (1965), p. 484
  • What I disliked most about Harvard was was that smug assumptions were too often treated as substitutes for evidence or logic. The idea seemed to be that if we bright and good fellows all believed something, it must be true.
    • Thomas Sowell, on his undergraduate studies at Harvard, in 'A Personal Odyssey (2000), The Free Press, p. 122

T

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  • Ivy League universities are becoming in the eyes of the new Asian upper class the ultimate status luxury good. Harvard is like a Vuitton bag and a Cartier watch.
  • The heuristic here would be to use education in reverse: hire, conditional on an equal set of skills, the person with the least label-oriented education. It means that the person had to succeed in spite of the credentialization of his competitors and overcome more serious hurdles. In addition, people who didn’t go to Harvard are easier to deal with in real life.
  • Have you heard the latest wisecrack about Harvard? People are calling it a hedge fund with a university attached. They have a point—Harvard stands at the troubling intersection between higher education and high finance, with over 15 percent of its massive $38 billion endowment invested in hedge funds.

W

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Y

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