Quotes by Leo Strauss

Leo Strauss

A conservative, I take it, is a man who despises vulgarity; but the argument which is concerned exclusively with calculations of success, and is based on blindness to the nobility of the effort, is vulgar.

Conservative

Effort

Men

Absolute tolerance is altogether impossible; the allegedly absolute tolerance turns into ferocious hatred of those who have stated clearly and most forcefully that there are unchangeable standards founded in the nature of man and the nature of things.

Hatred

Men

Tolerance

According to our social science, we can be or become wise in all matters of secondary importance, but we have to be resigned to utter ignorance in the most important respect: we cannot have any knowledge regarding the ultimate principles of our choices, i.e. regarding their soundness or unsoundness… We are then in the position of beings who are sane and sober when engaged in trivial business and who gamble like madmen when confronted with serious issues.

Ignorance

Issues

Wise

All political action aims at either preservation or change. When desiring to preserve, we wish to prevent a change for the worse; when desiring to change, we wish to bring about something better. All political action is then guided by some thought of better or worse.

Action

Political

Wish

But the God of the Bible is not only One, but the only possible One.

By becoming aware of the dignity of the mind, we realize the true ground of the dignity of man and therewith the goodness of the world, whither we understand it as created or uncreated, which is the home of man because it is the home of the human mind.

Home

Men

Mind

By realizing that we are ignorant of the most important things, we realize at the same time that the most important thing for us, or the one thing needful, is quest for knowledge of the most important things or quest for wisdom.

Ignorant

Important

Quests

Education to perfect gentlemanship, to human excellence, liberal education consists in reminding oneself of human excellence, of human greatness.

Excellence

Greatness

Perfect

Education, they [philosophers] felt, is the only answer to the always pressing question, to the political question par excellence, of how to reconcile order which is not oppression with freedom which is not license.

Excellence

Order

Political

Even by proving that a certain view is indispensable for living well, one proves merely that the view in question is a salutary myth: one does not prove it to be true.

Certain

Doe

Views

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Action

Art

Average

Believe

Book

Certain

Character

Clarification

Conservative

Democracy

Discovery

Doe

Dogma

Done

Ears

Effort

Evil

Excellence

Eye

Fate

Fundamentals

God Is There

Greatness

Hatred

Historical

Home

Humble

Ideas

Ifs

Ignorance

Ignorant

Important

Issues

Life Is

Life Is Too Short

Light

Long

May

Mean

Meaningful

Men

Might

Mind

Movement

Natural

Nihilism

No Idea

Numbers

Order

Past

The Future Blueprint

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The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

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Tool

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Tool

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Quotes by Leo Strauss

Leo Strauss

A conservative, I take it, is a man who despises vulgarity; but the argument which is concerned exclusively with calculations of success, and is based on blindness to the nobility of the effort, is vulgar.

Absolute tolerance is altogether impossible; the allegedly absolute tolerance turns into ferocious hatred of those who have stated clearly and most forcefully that there are unchangeable standards founded in the nature of man and the nature of things.

All political action aims at either preservation or change. When desiring to preserve, we wish to prevent a change for the worse; when desiring to change, we wish to bring about something better. All political action is then guided by some thought of better or worse.

But the God of the Bible is not only One, but the only possible One.

By becoming aware of the dignity of the mind, we realize the true ground of the dignity of man and therewith the goodness of the world, whither we understand it as created or uncreated, which is the home of man because it is the home of the human mind.

By realizing that we are ignorant of the most important things, we realize at the same time that the most important thing for us, or the one thing needful, is quest for knowledge of the most important things or quest for wisdom.

Education to perfect gentlemanship, to human excellence, liberal education consists in reminding oneself of human excellence, of human greatness.

Education, they [philosophers] felt, is the only answer to the always pressing question, to the political question par excellence, of how to reconcile order which is not oppression with freedom which is not license.

Even by proving that a certain view is indispensable for living well, one proves merely that the view in question is a salutary myth: one does not prove it to be true.

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