Richard M. Weaver Quotes - Page 2

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Belief Creation Culture Language Prejudice Progress Reality

Try to imagine a man setting out for the day without a single prejudice. ... Inevitably he would be in a state of paralysis. He could not get up in the morning, or choose his necktie, or make his way to the office, ... or, to come right down to the essence of the thing, even maintain his identity.

Richard M. Weaver

Morning, Men, Essence

Richard M. Weaver (1966). “Life Without Prejudice: And Other Essays”

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Respecters of private property are really obligated to oppose much that is done today in the name of private enterprise, for corporate organization and monopoly are the very means whereby property is casting aside its privacy.

Richard M. Weaver

Mean, Names, Organization

Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition”, p.121, University of Chicago Press

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The modern state does not comprehend how anyone can be guided by something other than itself. In its eyes pluralism is treason.

Richard M. Weaver

Eye, Pluralism Is, Doe

Richard M. Weaver (1948). “Ideas Have Consequences”

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The prevailing conception is that education must be such as will enable one to acquire enough wealth to live on the plane of the bourgeoisie. That kind of education does not develop the aristocratic virtues. It neither encourages reflection nor inspires reverence for the good.

Richard M. Weaver

Reflection, Inspire, Bourgeoisie

Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences”, p.49, University of Chicago Press

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One of the most important revelations about a period comes in its theory of language, for that informs us whether language is viewed as a bridge to the noumenal or as a body of fictions convenient for grappling with transitory phenomena.

Richard M. Weaver

Bridges, Important, Fiction

Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition”, p.136, University of Chicago Press

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The modern position seems only another manifestation of egotism, which develops when man has reached a point at which he will no longer admit the rights to existence of things not of his own contriving.

Richard M. Weaver

Men, Rights, Conservative

Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition”, p.154, University of Chicago Press

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Hysterical optimism will prevail until the world again admits the existence of tragedy, and it cannot admit the existence of tragedy until it again distinguishes between good and evil. . . Hysterical optimism as a sin against knowledge.

Richard M. Weaver

Evil, Optimism, Tragedy

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Those who are guilty of the argumentum ad ignorantiam profess belief in something because its opposite cannot be proved ... In the realm where "prejudice" is now most an issue, it normally takes a form like this: you cannot prove by the method of statistics and quantitative measurement that men are not equal. Therefore all men are equal. ... You cannot prove again by the methods of science that one culture is higher than another. Therefore the culture of the Digger Indians is just a good as that of Muncie, Indiana, or thirteenth-century France.

Richard M. Weaver

Men, Issues, Opposites

"Life Without Prejudice". Book by Richard M. Weaver, "Life without prejudice," p. 6, 1965.

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Most [people] see education only as the means by which a person is transported from one economic plane to a higher one.

Richard M. Weaver

Mean, People, Economic

Richard M. Weaver, Ted J. Smith (2000). “In defense of tradition: collected shorter writings of Richard M. Weaver, 1929-1963”, Liberty Fund Inc.

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Poetry offers the fairest hope of restoring our lost unity of mind.

Richard M. Weaver

Unity, Mind, Lost

Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition”, p.150, University of Chicago Press

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Where character forbids self-indulgence, transcendence still hovers around.

Richard M. Weaver

Character, Self, Transcendence

Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences”, p.73, University of Chicago Press

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Since we want not emancipation from impulse but clarification of impulse, the duty of rhetoric is to bring together action and understanding into a whole that is greater than scientific perception.

Richard M. Weaver

Understanding, Perception, Together

Richard M. Weaver (1985). “The Ethics of Rhetoric”, p.24, Psychology Press

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To one completely committed to this realm of becoming, as are the empiricists, the claim to apprehend verities is a sign of psychopathology. Probably we have here but a highly sophisticated expression of the doctrine that ideals are hallucination and that the only normal, sane person is the healthy extrovert, making instant, instinctive adjustments to the stimuli of the material world.

Richard M. Weaver

Expression, Healthy, Becoming

Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition”, p.137, University of Chicago Press

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Man is constantly being assured that he has more power than ever before in history, but his daily experience is one of powerlessness. ... If he is with a business organization, the odds are great that he has sacrificed every other kind of independence in return for that dubious one known as financial.

Richard M. Weaver

Men, Odds, Organization

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Man is an organism, not a mechanism; and the mechanical pacing of his life does harm to his human responses, which naturally follow a kind of free rhythm.

Richard M. Weaver

Men, Doe, Kind

Richard M. Weaver, Ted J. Smith (2000). “In defense of tradition: collected shorter writings of Richard M. Weaver, 1929-1963”, Liberty Fund Inc.

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Triumphs against the natural order of living exact unforeseen payments. At the same time that man attempts to straighten a crooked nature, he is striving to annihilate space, which seems but another phase of the war against substance. We ignore the fact that space and matter are shock absorbers; the more we diminish them the more we reduce our privacy and security.

Richard M. Weaver

War, Men, Order

Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition”, p.155, University of Chicago Press

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...knowledge of material reality is the knowledge of death.

Richard M. Weaver

Reality, Materials

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Neuter discourse is a false idol.

Richard M. Weaver

Idols, Discourse

Richard M. Weaver (1985). “The Ethics of Rhetoric”, p.24, Psychology Press

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That it does not matter what a man believes is a statement heard on every side today. ... What he believes tells him what the world is for. How can men who disagree about what the world is for agree about any of the minutiae of daily conduct? The statement really means that it does not matter what a man believes so long as he does not take his beliefs seriously.

Richard M. Weaver

Believe, Mean, Men

Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition”, p.22, University of Chicago Press

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Our planet is falling victim to a rigorism, so that what is done in any remote corner affects - nay, menaces - the whole. Resiliency and tolerance are lost.

Richard M. Weaver

Fall, Tolerance, Done

Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition”, p.156, University of Chicago Press

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It is not that things give meaning to words; it is that meaning makes things "things." It does not make things in their subsistence; but it does make things in their discreteness for the understanding.

Richard M. Weaver

Giving, Understanding, Doe

Richard M. Weaver, Ted J. Smith (2000). “In defense of tradition: collected shorter writings of Richard M. Weaver, 1929-1963”, Liberty Fund Inc.

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The typical modern has the look of the hunted.

Richard M. Weaver

Typical, Looks, Modern

Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences”, p.16, University of Chicago Press

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We cannot be too energetic in reminding our nihilists and positivists that this is a world of action and history.

Richard M. Weaver

World, Action, Nihilist

Letter to R. T. Eubanks (January 19, 1961) in "Language is Sermonic", p. 56, 1970.

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Piety is a discipline of the will through respect. It admits the right to exist of things larger than the ego, of things different from the ego.

Richard M. Weaver

Discipline, Ego, Different

Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition”, p.155, University of Chicago Press

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Man ... feels lost without the direction-finder provide by progress.

Richard M. Weaver

Men, Progress, Lost

Richard M. Weaver (1985). “The Ethics of Rhetoric”, p.216, Psychology Press

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Born: March 3, 1910
Died: April 1, 1963
Occupation: Philosopher
Cite this Page: Citation

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