Richard M. Weaver Quotes - Page 3

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• It is characteristic of the barbarian ... to insist upon seeing a thing "as it is." The desire testifies that he has nothing in himself with which to spiritualize it; the relation is one of thing to thing without the intercession of the imagination. Impatient of the veiling with which the man of higher type gives the world imaginative meaning, the barbarian and the Philistine, who is the barbarian living amid culture, demands the access of immediacy. Where the former wishes representation, the latter insists upon starkness of materiality, suspecting rightly that forms will mean restraint.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Mean, Men, Giving

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• In the popular arena, one can tell ... that the average man ... imagines that an industrious acquisition of particulars will render him a man of knowledge. With what pathetic trust does he recite his facts! He has been told that knowledge is power, and knowledge consists of a great many small things.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Men, Average, Doe

  Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences”, p.13, University of Chicago Press

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• Somehow the notion has been loosed that nature is hostile to man or that her ways are offensive or slovenly, so that every step of progress is measured by how far we have altered these. Nothing short of a recovery of the ancient virtue of pietas can absolve man from this sin.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Recovery, Men, Progress

  Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences”, p.171, University of Chicago Press

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• Now, with the general decay of religious faith , it is the scientists who must speak ex cathedra, whether they wish to or not.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Religious, Wish, Decay

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

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• A prejudice may be an unreasoned judgment, he [Hibben] pointed out, but an unreasoned judgment is not necessarily an illogical judgment. ... First, there are those judgments whose verification has simply dropped out of memory. ... The second type of unreasoned judgments we hold is the opinions we adopt from others ... The third class of judgments in Professor Hibben's list comprises those which have subconscious origin. The material that furnishes their support does not reach the focal point of consciousness, but psychology insists upon its existence.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Memories, Class, Support

  "Life Without Prejudice". Book by Richard M. Weaver, "Life without prejudice," pp. 8-9, 1965.

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• The semanticists are exactly wrong in regarding language as an obstruction or series of pitfalls. Language, on the contrary, appears as a great storehouse of universal memory, or it may be said to serve as a net, not imprisoning us but supporting us and aiding us to get at a meaning beyond present meaning through the very fact that it embodies others' experiences.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Memories, Pitfalls, May

  Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences”, p.158, University of Chicago Press

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• The realization that just as no action is really indifferent, so no utterance is without its responsibility introduces, it is true, a certain strenuosity into life.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Responsibility, Realization, Utterance

  "The Ethics of Rhetoric". Book by Richard M. Weaver, "The Phaedrus and the Nature of Rhetoric," p. 24, 1953.

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• Many of us who read the literature of social science as laymen are conscious of being admitted at a door which bears the watchword "scientific objectivity" and of emerging at another door which looks out upon a variety of projects for changing, renovating, or revolutionizing society. In consequence, we feel the need of a more explicit account of how the student of society passes from facts to values or statements of policy.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Doors, Objectivity, Bears

  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 scientists have given [modern man] the impression that there is nothing he cannot know, and false propagandists have told him that there is nothing he cannot have.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Men, Modern, Scientist

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• Drill in exact translation is an excellent way of disposing the mind against that looseness and exaggeration with which the sensationalists have corrupted our world. If schools of journalism knew their business, they would graduate no one who could not render the Greek poets.

  Richard M. Weaver

  School, Our World, Greek

  Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences”, p.167, University of Chicago Press

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• The member of a culture ... purposely avoids the relationship of intimacy; he wants the object somehow depicted and fictionalized. ... He is embarrassed when this is taken out of its context of proper sentiments and presented bare, for he feels that this is a reintrusion of that world which his whole conscious effort has sought to banish. Forms and conventions are the ladder of ascent. And hence the speechlessness of the man of culture when he beholds the barbarian tearing aside some veil which is half adornment, half concealment.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Taken, Men, Effort

  "Ideas have Consequences". Book by Richard M. Weaver. p. 26, 1948.

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• It is an ancient belief, going back to classical antiquity, that specialization of any kind is illiberal in a freeman. A man willing to bury himself in the details of some small endeavor has been considered lost to these larger considerations which must occupy the mind of the ruler.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Men, Mind, Details

  Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences”, p.56, University of Chicago Press

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• contempt for the degradation of specialization and pedantry. Specialization develops only part of a man; a man partially developed is deformed.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Men, Degradation, Contempt

  Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences”, p.56, University of Chicago Press

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• In recognizing that words have power to define and to compel, the semanticists are actually testifying to the philosophic quality of language which is the source of their vexation. In an attempt to get rid of that quality, they are looking for some neutral means which will be a nonconductor of the current called "emotion" and its concomitant of evaluation.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Mean, Quality, Vexation

  Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition”, p.138, University of Chicago Press

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• No one can take culture seriously if he believes that it is only the uppermost of several layers of epiphenomena resting on a primary reality of economic activity.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Believe, Reality, Culture

  "Life Without Prejudice". Book by Richard M. Weaver, "The Importance of Cultural Freedom," p. 25, 1965.

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• In any piece of rhetorical discourse, one rhetorical term overcomes another rhetorical term only by being nearer to the term which stands ultimate. There is some ground for calling a rhetorical education necessarily aristocratic education in that the rhetorician has to deal with an aristocracy of notions.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Overcoming, Aristocracy, Calling

  Richard M. Weaver (2016). “The Ethics of Rhetoric”, p.23, Routledge

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• Beneath the surface of repartee and mock seriousness, [Plato's Phaedrus] is asking whether we ought to prefer a neuter form of speech to the kind which is ever getting us aroused over things and provoking an expense of spirit.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Plato, Asking, Speech

  Richard M. Weaver (1985). “The Ethics of Rhetoric”, p.5, Psychology Press

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• The conclusion, so vexatious to democracy, that wisdom and not popularity qualifies for rule may be forced upon us by the peril in atomic energy.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Democracy, Energy, May

  Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition”, p.60, University of Chicago Press

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• The aristocratic mind ... is anti-analytical. It is concerned more with the status of being than with the demonstrable relationship of parts.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Mind, Concerned, Aristocratic

  Richard M. Weaver (1966). “Life without prejudice, and other essays”

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• Absorption in ease is one of the most reliable signs of present or impending decay.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Decay, Ease, Absorption

  Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition”, p.106, University of Chicago Press

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• In proportion as man approaches the outer rim, he becomes lost in details, and the more he is preoccupied with details, the less he can understand them.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Men, Details, Lost

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

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• Progress never defines its ultimate objective but thrusts its victims at once into an infinite series,' Mr. [John Crowe] Ransom said' 'Industrialism,' he declared, 'is rightfully a menial, of almost miraculous cunning, but no intelligence; it needs to be strongly governed, or it will destroy the economy of the household. Only a community of tough conservative habit can master it.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Community, Progress, Needs

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• When we affirm that philosophy begins with wonder , we are affirming in effect that sentiment is prior to reason .

  Richard M. Weaver

  Philosophy, Wonder, Reason

  Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences”, p.19, University of Chicago Press

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• There are some despotic governments so filled with a feeling of insecurity that they regard the free life of culture as a threat to their existence. ... On the other extreme is the kind of popular government which is so distrustful of all forms of distinction that it sees even in the cultivated individual a menace to its existence. Such states are likely to maintain a pressure which discourages cultural endeavor, although the pressure may be exerted through social channels.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Government, Feelings, Insecurity

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• Before the age of adulteration it was held that behind each work there stood some conception of its perfect execution. It was this that gave zest to labor and served to measure the degree of success.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Zest, Perfect, Age

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

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