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Daily Inspiration Quote by Morris Raphael Cohen

"Liberalism is an attitude rather than a set of dogmas - an attitude that insists upon questioning all plausible and self-evident propositions, seeking not to reject them but to find out what evidence there is to support them rather than their possible alternatives"

About this Quote

Liberalism, in Cohen's hands, isn’t a party platform; it’s a mental posture with teeth. Writing as a philosopher in the early 20th century, Cohen is pushing back against the popular caricature of liberalism as a grab-bag of permissive opinions. He rebrands it as disciplined skepticism: a refusal to treat “plausible” and “self-evident” claims as exempt from scrutiny simply because they feel natural, traditional, or widely repeated.

The key move is his insistence on questioning without the thrill of demolition. “Seeking not to reject” is doing quiet but heavy work. Cohen is wary of the pose of radical negation as much as he’s wary of dogma. The liberal temperament he’s describing is closer to a courtroom than a barricade: test the case, ask what evidence exists, and then ask what evidence could support the alternatives we’ve been trained not to see. That last clause - “rather than their possible alternatives” - contains the subtext: most intellectual coercion works by shrinking the menu. Power doesn’t always lie; it often just declares the debate finished.

Context matters. Cohen lived through the rise of mass propaganda, ideological movements that demanded loyalty over inquiry, and a modern media environment that could make a claim feel “self-evident” through repetition. His intent is protective: liberalism as an epistemic ethic, a safeguard against certainty dressed up as common sense. In an era when politics keeps trying to convert identity into belief, Cohen argues for a more subversive allegiance: loyalty to the process that makes beliefs earn their authority.

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TopicReason & Logic
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APA Style (7th ed.)
Cohen, Morris Raphael. (n.d.). Liberalism is an attitude rather than a set of dogmas - an attitude that insists upon questioning all plausible and self-evident propositions, seeking not to reject them but to find out what evidence there is to support them rather than their possible alternatives. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/liberalism-is-an-attitude-rather-than-a-set-of-92693/

Chicago Style
Cohen, Morris Raphael. "Liberalism is an attitude rather than a set of dogmas - an attitude that insists upon questioning all plausible and self-evident propositions, seeking not to reject them but to find out what evidence there is to support them rather than their possible alternatives." FixQuotes. Accessed February 2, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/liberalism-is-an-attitude-rather-than-a-set-of-92693/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Liberalism is an attitude rather than a set of dogmas - an attitude that insists upon questioning all plausible and self-evident propositions, seeking not to reject them but to find out what evidence there is to support them rather than their possible alternatives." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/liberalism-is-an-attitude-rather-than-a-set-of-92693/. Accessed 2 Feb. 2026.

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Liberalism as an Attitude - Morris Raphael Cohen
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Morris Raphael Cohen (July 25, 1880 - January 28, 1947) was a Philosopher from Russia.

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