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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| c9bfc6c | In the event things got worse, and Spinoza gave up the idea of publishing the Ethics, believing that it would create such a cloud of hostility as to obscure, in the minds even of reasonable people, the real meaning of its arguments. Meanwhile, the book was read attentively, and at least one club existed for the express purpose of working through its proofs. | spinoza | Roger Scruton | |
| b70a1d3 | The seclusion of Spinoza's life was necessitated by intense labour and intellectual discipline, and his frugality expressed independence of spirit rather than meanness or self-concern. The strength of Spinoza's social feelings, and his Aristotelian emphasis on friendship as a necessary human good, are abundantly shown in the Ethics. | Roger Scruton | ||
| c3180d9 | While Spinoza did not condemn marriage, he rejected it for himself, perhaps fearing the 'ill temper of a woman', and in any case recognizing in matrimony a threat to his scholarly interests. | spinoza | Roger Scruton | |
| dbeaca5 | By seeing society in class terms we are programmed to find antagonism at the heart of all the institutions through which people have attempted to limit it. Nation, law, faith, tradition, sovereignty - these ideas by contrast denote things that unite us. It is in terms of them that we attempt to articulate the fundamental togetherness that mitigates social rivalries, whether of class, status or economic role. Hence it has always been a vital.. | hobsbawm invented-tradition | Roger Scruton | |
| fb5b384 | Accountable government does not come through elections. It comes through respect for law, through public spirit and through a culture of confession. | Roger Scruton | ||
| e635d06 | The philosopher and the scientist emphasize different features of the world, follow different interests and inspire different passions in the soul. But the aim of their study is in each case the same: the supreme good which consists in the adequate knowledge of God | scientist spinoza | Roger Scruton | |
| 4a457ce | There's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women. | Sheryl Sandberg | ||
| 8892551 | To the mass of mankind, therefore, the philosopher may appear as a spiritual saboteur, a subverter of things lawfully established, and an apologist for the devil. So Spinoza appeared to his contemporaries, and for many years after his death he was regarded as the greatest heretic of the 17th century. | spinoza | Roger Scruton | |
| 96e9484 | Many social and political changes have swept the world clean of the apprehension of sacred things: the rejection of custom and ceremony; the conversion of marriage into a defeasible contract; the relaxing of the laws governing, sexual conduct and obscenity; the decline of faith and saintliness. As those changes take their effect, the experience of erotic love becomes darigerous and uncertain in its outcome. Our responsibility retreats furth.. | love sacred | Roger Scruton | |
| a30dd25 | Hence we inevitably see ourselves from outside, as others see us, and seek for their approval and sympathy, which is the greatest of social goods. | Roger Scruton | ||
| 9f53b24 | No linguistic behaviour can logically determine its own sequel, since no past time can logically determine the future. A man may 'follow a rule' as we do, and yet, at some future time, diverge from us, insisting all the while that what he is doing is the same as what he has always done. We cannot establish, once and for all, and with no possibility of doubt, that another really does understand a word as we do -- whether that word be 'he' or.. | Roger Scruton | ||
| 892849f | As soon as another person becomes important to us, so that we feel in our lives the gravitational pull of his existence, we are to a certain extent astonished by his individuality. From time to time we pause in his presence, and allow the incomprehensible fact of his being in the world to dawn on us. And if we love him and trust him, and feel the comfort of his companionship, then our sentiment, in these moments, is like the sentiment of be.. | gravity individuality love uniqueness | Roger Scruton | |
| 0c852d6 | For a certain kind of temperament, defeat is never defeat by reality, but always defeat by other people, often acting together as members of a class, tribe, conspiracy or clan. | paranoia politics reality zero-sum-game | Roger Scruton | |
| bcdba1a | Value begins where calculation ends, since that which matters most to us is the thing that we will not exchange. | Roger Scruton | ||
| fcb8e8a | The greatest modern philosopher was moved by nothing more than by duty. His life, in consequence, was unremarkable. For Kant, the virtuous man is so much the master of his passions as scarcely to be prompted by them, and so far indifferent to power and reputation as to regard their significance as nothing beside that of duty itself. | Roger Scruton | ||
| 8e7e01f | the power of jealousy is one of the most important facts to be taken account of in the derivation of sexual morality. In a world where sexual prohibitions are of diminishing force, we should not be surprised that so many people take refuge from jealousy in the avoidance of love. For where love exists, the price of sexual freedom is suffering. | Roger Scruton | ||
| b214c1b | Social traditions exist because they enable a society to reproduce itself. Destroy them heedlessly and you remove the guarantee offered by one generation to the next. | Roger Scruton | ||
| 74af6c5 | Many accuse conservatism of being no more than a highly-wrought work of mourning, a translation into the language of politics of the yearning for childhood that lies deep in us all. | Roger Scruton | ||
| 4478659 | Eimaste plasmata pou katadunasteuomaste apo to soma,apo tis epithumies mas.Omos mas plettoun kai mas plegonoun exoterikoi paragontes kai egklobizomaste mesa sto sustema tou aitiou kai tou apotelesmatos.Upo autes tis sunthekes uparkhei mia mono alethine sophia ki aute einai na megalosoume te duname mas,kai na epibebaiosoume,oso auto einai dunaton,pos o,ti mas sumbainei to ekhoume prokalesei emeis oi idioi. | Roger Scruton | ||
| d8c84b2 | The bitter thought against which Don Juan hopelessly rebels is the same thought that contains the promise of Tristan's consolation: the thought of death. Don Juanism and Tristanism are extreme responses to a perception that lies at the root of human attraction and human love: the thought of our common mortality. | love | Roger Scruton | |
| 38bbcc7 | But what you do with another person's beauty? The satisfied lover is as little able to possess the beauty of his beloved as the one who hopelessly observes it from afar. | love lover possess satisfied | Roger Scruton | |
| 5474283 | I count myself among those who owe a great debt to The Concept of Mind. When it was published I was an undergraduate student of philosophy at the Gregorian University in Rome. The book was drawn to my attention by Dr (now Bishop) Alan Clark, then Ripetitore in philosophy at the Venerable English College in Rome. I found its style exhilaratingly different from that of the scholastic textbooks which were prescribed in the courses of my Pontif.. | aristotle ryle | Anthony Kenny | |
| 689f986 | Philosophy is linguistic' may mean at least six different things. (1) The study of language is a useful philosophical tool. (2) It is the only philosophical tool. (3) Language is the only subject matter of philosophy. (4) Necessary truths are established by linguistic convention. (5) Man is fundamentally a language using animal. (6) Everyday language has a status of privilege over technical and formal systems. These six propositions are ind.. | language philosophy | Anthony Kenny | |
| 1908675 | Philosophy is not a matter of knowledge; it is a matter of understanding, that is to say, of organizing what is known. | Anthony Kenny | ||
| 0bb8443 | In the period between Homer and Socrates most philosophers wrote in verse, and Plato, writing in the great age of Athenian tragedy and comedy, composed dramatic dialogue. Aristotle, an exact contemporary of the greatest Greek orator Demosthenes, preferred to write in prose monologue. | Anthony Kenny | ||
| 62925a0 | From my vantage point in a busy working kitchen, when I'd see Emeril and Bobby on the tube, they looked like creatures from another planet--bizarrely, artificially cheerful creatures in a candy-colored galaxy in no way resembling my own. They were as far from my experience or understanding as Barney the purple dinosaur--or the saxophone stylings of Kenny G. The fact that people--strangers--seemed to love them, Emeril's studio audience, for .. | Anthony Bourdain | ||
| 7ab97cf | Therefore the prayers we offer in the Mass for the world are far more powerful than the prayers we offer outside the Mass, even if the prayers we offer outside the Mass are the same prayers, and even if there are more of them, and even if they are offered for the same people, or for more people, and even if they are offered with the same faith and devotion on our part, or even with a little more faith and devotion on our part. | Peter Kreeft | ||
| 0e14925 | We are bored with God because our heartsq do not hunger for God, seek God, love God | Peter Kreeft | ||
| d9e60ea | Because" is ambiguous. It could mean only a subjective motive ("Because I'm paranoid, I believe that man is going to kill me"), or it could mean an objective reason ("Because he's pointing a gun at me and squeezing the trigger, I believe that man is going to kill me"). "We believe in angels because we seek security" is only a subjective, psychological motive. "We believe in angels because God has revealed to us in the Bible that they exist".. | Peter Kreeft | ||
| faa57fc | The only honest reason for anyone ever to believe anything is that it is true, that it is really there. | Peter Kreeft | ||
| 80d5cec | The fifties were far from utopia, but we all know they were significantly happier than today. At this point someone will respond by quoting the ultimate law of life: "Ah, but you can't turn back the clock. You can't go home again. You can't stop progress." Yes, you can. This 'ultimate law' is a lie. ...We can stop this false god Progress. But instead we have stopped real progress. Real progress means getting closer to our goal. And the goal.. | Peter Kreeft | ||
| 177918b | You will have noticed by this time, of course, that St. Thomas almost always solves a dilemma by making a distinction. That is not a quirk of his personality or even of his method, but a reflection of the nature of reality. Reality is complex: it has many dimensions, "there are more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your [always-simplistic and abstracted] philosophy" (Hamlet). This is the source of nearly all dilemmas and ap.. | Peter Kreeft | ||
| 7538885 | Article 10: Whether symbolic logic is superior to Aristotelian logic for philosophizing? Objection 1 : It seems that it is, for it is a modern development, and would not have become popular if it were not superior. In fact, 99% of all formal logic textbooks in print today use symbolic rather than Aristotelian logic. Objection 2: It is as superior in efficiency to Aristotelian logic as Arabic numerals to Roman numerals, or a computer to an.. | Peter Kreeft | ||
| a76bbf8 | Belief in angels makes an even bigger difference if you believe in God and pray, because your prayers to God to send angel help will be answered. | Peter Kreeft | ||
| 301d05a | Some philosophers | Peter Kreeft | ||
| 5f0a8d2 | are more like Dog and Cat and Bird than like Lassie and Fido and Spot. Therefore, | Peter Kreeft | ||
| da90cfd | Therefore if we lack the feeling of repentance but nevertheless want to repent; if we choose repentance with the will; we are then repenting, since repentance is that choice of the will. | Peter Kreeft | ||
| 50c1566 | The most serious religious objection to Purgatory, on the part of Protestants, is that the anticipation of the pains of Purgatory detracts from a happy death ("blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord"--Rev 14:13). But that is like saying that the pains of labor detract from the joy of childbirth. Deferred happiness is still happiness. In" | Peter Kreeft | ||
| 733b8e6 | Seek and you shall find" does not refer to anything else: long life, conquest of earthly enemies, freedom from pain, disease, death, betrayal, weakness, and so on. But it does refer to God and to that which God is: "God is agape." That is why all who seek it find it. De Caussade says: "If you search for this kingdom where God alone rules, you can be quite sure you will find it" (p. 112)." | Peter Kreeft | ||
| 8ef3ef6 | Humans are the lowest (least intelligent) of spirits and the highest (most intelligent) of animals. We are rational animals, incarnate minds, the smartest of animals and the stupidest of spirits: | Peter Kreeft | ||
| 0cb8a0c | Kennedy: You mean it's not a matter of good deeds versus bad deeds, a kind of moral bookkeeping? Lewis: No indeed. Look at the thief on the cross. He made it to paradise even though his life's red ink certainly outweighed the black. Kennedy: | Peter Kreeft | ||
| 024a395 | Presumption and despair are opposite deadly sins. We hear a lot about despair, and the need for hope; but what is presumption? | Peter Kreeft | ||
| d544187 | Kamo god da ides, s tobom ide i tvoj andeo cuvar. Prije nego sto se spremas nekamo ici, razmisli je li to mjesto prikladno za jednoga andela. | angels-and-demons catholicism christianity | Peter Kreeft | |
| 5691041 | St. Thomas thus detects a primary source of presumption in seeking genuinely good things, like human happiness on earth, as if we did not need divine grace to attain them; and in the hope that we can obtain God's pardon and mercy without our confessing and repenting of sin. | Peter Kreeft |