Edward Levi Quotes

United States, Public Servant
June 26, 1911 – March, 7, 2000.

Edward Hirsch Levi (June 26, 1911 – March 7, 2000) was an American law professor, academic leader, scholar, and statesman. He served as president of the University of Chicago from 1968 to 1975, and then as United States Attorney General in the Ford Administration. Levi is regularly cited as the "model of a modern attorney general", the "greatest lawyer of his time", and is credited with restoring order after Watergate. He is considered, along with Yale's Whitney Griswold, the greatest of postwar American university presidents.

The University conceives of itself as dedicated to the power of the intellect. Its commitment is to the way of reason.

Edward Levi
- Power
- Commitment
The introduction of many minds into many fields of learning along a broad spectrum keeps alive questions about the accessibility, if not the unity, of knowledge.

Edward Levi
- Knowledge
- Learning
- Unity

Universities are the custodians not only of the many cultures of man, but of the rational process itself.

Edward Levi
Law builds upon and, I should like to claim, is one of the liberal arts. It uses words of persuasion and changing definitions for practical ends.

Edward Levi
- Words
- Law
The concept of reason itself appears as an artificial attempt to separate intellectual powers from the frustrations, emotions, and accidents which cause events; the concept of reason is viewed as facade to prevent change.

Edward Levi
The role of a liberal arts college within a university is to be a genuine part of that university, giving and responding to the other parts.

Edward Levi
- Giving
- College
As an instrument for practical action, law is responsive to the wisdom of its time, which may be wrong, but it carries forward, sometimes in opposition to this wisdom or passion, a memory of received values.

Edward Levi
- Time
- May
- Law