Leo Strauss Quotes

Quotes about:

• No bloody or unbloody change of society can eradicate the evil in man: as long as there will be men, there will be malice, envy and hatred, and hence there cannot be a society which does not have to employ coercive restraint.

  Leo Strauss

  Men, Long, Evil

  Leo Strauss (1978). “The City and Man”, p.5, University of Chicago Press

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• One cannot refute what one has not thoroughly understood.

  Leo Strauss

  Understood

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• 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.

  Leo Strauss

  Men, Hatred, Tolerance

  Leo Strauss (1995). “Liberalism Ancient and Modern”, p.63, University of Chicago Press

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• The Jewish people and their fate are the living witness for the absence of redemption. This, one could say, is the meaning of the chosen people; the Jews are chosen to prove the absence of redemption.

  Leo Strauss

  Fate, People, Redemption

  Leo Strauss (2012). “Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity: Essays and Lectures in Modern Jewish Thought”, p.327, SUNY Press

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• 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.

  Leo Strauss

  Political, Wish, Action

  Leo Strauss (1959). “What is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies”, p.10, University of Chicago Press

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• The silence of a wise man is always meaningful.

  Leo Strauss

  Wise, Meaningful, Men

  Leo Strauss (1978). “Thoughts on Machiavelli”, p.30, University of Chicago Press

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• Liberal relativism has its roots in the natural right tradition of tolerance or in the notion that everyone has a natural right to the pursuit of happiness as he understands happiness; but in itself it is a seminary of intolerance.

  Leo Strauss

  Pursuit Of Happiness, Roots, Tolerance

  Leo Strauss (1953). “Natural Right and History”, p.6, University of Chicago Press

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• 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.

  Leo Strauss

  Wise, Ignorance, Issues

  "Natural Right and History". Book by Leo Strauss, 1953.

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• God is therefore unknowable. This is the fundamental premise of the Bible.

  Leo Strauss

  Fundamentals, God Is There, Premises

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• 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.

  Leo Strauss

  Order, Political, Excellence

  Leo Strauss (2013). “Persecution and the Art of Writing”, p.37, University of Chicago Press

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• The contemporary rejection of natural right leads to nihilism - nay, it is identical with nihilism.

  Leo Strauss

  Rejection, Nihilism, Natural

  Leo Strauss (1953). “Natural Right and History”, p.5, University of Chicago Press

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

  Leo Strauss

  Greatness, Perfect, Excellence

  Leo Strauss (1995). “Liberalism Ancient and Modern”, p.6, University of Chicago Press

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• It is safer to try to understand the low in the light of the high than the high in the light of the low. In doing the latter one necessarily distorts the high, whereas in doing the former one does not deprive the low of the freedom to reveal itself as fully as what it is.

  Leo Strauss

  Light, Trying, Doe

  Leo Strauss (1996). “Spinoza's Critique of Religion”, p.2, University of Chicago Press

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• Liberal education, which consists in the constant intercourse with the greatest minds, is a training in the highest form of modesty. ... It is at the same time a training in boldness. ... It demands from us the boldness implied in the resolve to regard the accepted views as mere opinions, or to regard the average opinions as extreme opinions which are at least as likely to be wrong as the most strange or least popular opinions

  Leo Strauss

  Views, Average, Training

  Leo Strauss, Hilail Gildin (1989). “An Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ten Essays”, p.319, Wayne State University Press

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• Life is too short to live with any but the greatest books.

  Leo Strauss

  Life Is Too Short, Book, Life Is

  Leo Strauss (1995). “Liberalism Ancient and Modern”, p.6, University of Chicago Press

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• For try as one may to expel nature with a hayfork, it will always come back.

  Leo Strauss

  Trying, May

  Leo Strauss (1959). “What is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies”, p.124, University of Chicago Press

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• If God is One, and if there can be no other God, there can be no idea of God.

  Leo Strauss

  Ideas, No Idea, Ifs

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• Philosophizing means, then, to ascend from public dogma to essentially private knowledge.

  Leo Strauss

  Mean, Dogma

  Leo Strauss, Hilail Gildin (1989). “An Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ten Essays”, p.102, Wayne State University Press

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• The adjective "political" in "political philosophy" designates not so much the subject matter as a manner of treatment; from this point of view, I say, "political philosophy" means primarily not the philosophic study of politics, but the political, or popular, treatment of philosophy, or the political introduction to philosophy the attempt to lead qualified citizens, or rather their qualified sons, from the political life to the philosophic life.

  Leo Strauss

  Philosophy, Mean, Son

  "What is Political Philosophy?". Book by Leo Strauss, 1959.

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• If the highest things are unknowable, then the highest capacity or virtue of man cannot be theoretical wisdom.

  Leo Strauss

  Wisdom, Men, Virtue

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• 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.

  Leo Strauss

  Men, Effort, Conservative

  Leo Strauss (2012). “Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity: Essays and Lectures in Modern Jewish Thought”, p.414, SUNY Press

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• Liberal education reminds those members of a mass democracy who have ears to hear, of human greatness.

  Leo Strauss

  Greatness, Democracy, Ears

  Leo Strauss (1995). “Liberalism Ancient and Modern”, p.5, University of Chicago Press

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• The emancipation of the scholars and scientists from philosophy is according to [Nietzsche] only a part of the democratic movement, i.e. of the emancipation of the low from subordination to the high. ... The plebeian character of the contemporary scholar or scientist is due to the fact that he has no reverence for himself.

  Leo Strauss

  Philosophy, Character, Movement

  Leo Strauss (1985). “Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy”, p.186, University of Chicago Press

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• It is as absurd to expect members of philosophy departments to be philosophers as it is to expect members of art departments to be artists.

  Leo Strauss

  Art, Philosophy, Philosopher

  Leo Strauss, Hilail Gildin (1989). “An Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ten Essays”, p.317, Wayne State University Press

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• The facile delusions which conceal from us our true situation all amount to this: that we are, or can be, wiser than the wisest men of the past. We are thus induced to play the part, not of attentive and docile listeners, but of impresarios and lion-tamers.

  Leo Strauss

  Men, Past, Play

  Leo Strauss (1995). “Liberalism Ancient and Modern”, p.8, University of Chicago Press

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