"Ask yourself, if you or a loved one is to undergo brain or heart surgery, does it matter whether the surgeons who will operate had been selected for medical school for any other reason than their aptitude for medicine and surgery? Even if there were no quotas, should race have been "taken into consideration" in their selection? Consider the hairline life and death decisions that surgeons make all the time. Does not every consideration, however slight, apart from aptitude, dilute the qualifications of surgeons for surgery? The next time you are crossing a great bridge, do you not rely upon the qualifications of the engineers and builders to ensure your safety? What does the skin color of the classmates of doctors or engineers have to do with their medicine or their engineering? Is it not their professional qualification that matters, and not either the sameness or the differences from which they came? Is not the same true if we are seeking mathematicians, physicists, economists, or generals? In each case, what is apt for the end in view may be regarded as good, what is inapt may be regarded as bad."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United StatesPhilosophers from the United StatesEducators from the United StatesHistorians from the United StatesJews from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harry_V._Jaffa
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Harry V. Jaffa
Harry Victor Jaffa (7 October 1918 – 10 January 2015) was an American historian, writer, and collegiate professor from New York City, known for his writings on the American Civil War.
171 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Harry V. Jaffa →
Related Quotes
"[T]he generation of the Founding Fathers, who certainly knew the story of Noah and his sons, nonetheless believed in …"
"That one man can run faster than another is no reason to prevent the latter from entering the race. Indeed, until the…"
"[S]laves are never referred to in the Constitution as anything but 'persons', a characterization that is perfectly ne…"
"This remarkable address conveys, more than any other contemporary document, not only the soul of the Confederacy but …"
"According to Davis it did not require a Galileo or a Harvey (or a Darwin) to discover the natural inferiority of the …"
"In 1860 Senator Wilson, like Lincoln, could not ask for recognition of more than the black man's natural rights. But …"
"And it’s important to understand the sequence of events, and the ideas that accompanied that sequence of events that …"
"[S]lavery existed among the Americans largely because of the action of the crown. For the king to have been complicit…"
"The paradox of calling the same human beings persons and property brings the cause of the Civil War into the sharpest…"
"South Carolina cites, loosely, but with substantial accuracy, some of the language of the original Declaration. That …"