Allan Bloom Quotes

Quotes about:

• Education is the movement from darkness to light.

  Allan Bloom

  Inspirational, Education, Light

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.265, Simon and Schuster

  56 Copy quote

• The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.

  Allan Bloom

  Successful, Political, Awareness Of Others

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.249, Simon and Schuster

  32 Copy quote

• The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency - the belief that the here and now is all there is.

  Allan Bloom

  Book, Reading, Knowledge

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.64, Simon and Schuster

  21 Copy quote

• To recognize that some of the things our culture believes are not true imposes on us the duty of finding out which are true and which are not.

  Allan Bloom

  Believe, Culture, Duty

  "Giants and Dwarfs". Book by Allan Bloom. Chapter: "Western Civ," p. 22, 1990.

  19 Copy quote

• The self is the modern substitute for the soul.

  Allan Bloom

  Self, Soul, Modern

  6 Copy quote

• Sycophancy toward those who hold power is a fact in every regime, and especially in a democracy, where, unlike tyranny, there is an accepted principle of legitimacy that breaks the inner will to resist.... Flattery of the people and incapacity to resist public opinion are the democratic vices, particularly among writers, artists, journalists and anyone else who is dependent on an audience.

  Allan Bloom

  Artist, People, Democracy

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.249, Simon and Schuster

  15 Copy quote

• Reason cannot establish values, and its belief that it can is the stupidest and most pernicious illusion.

  Allan Bloom

  Belief, Illusion, Reason

  "Closing of the American Mind".

  29 Copy quote

• Every age is blind to its own worst madness.

  Allan Bloom

  Age, Madness, Blind

  10 Copy quote

• Professors of Greek forget or are unaware that Thomas Aquinas, who did not know Greek, was a better interpreter of Aristotle than any of them have proved to be, not only because he was smarter but because he took Aristotle more seriously.

  Allan Bloom

  Greek, Philosopher, Forget

  6 Copy quote

• A good education would be devoted to encouraging and refining the love of the beautiful, but a pathologically misguided moralism instead turns such longing into a sin against the high goal of making everyone feel good, of overcoming nature in the name of equality. ... Love of the beautiful may be the last and finest sacrifice to radical egalitarianism.

  Allan Bloom

  Beautiful, Sacrifice, Egalitarianism

  Allan David Bloom (1993). “Love and Friendship”

  8 Copy quote

• Self-interest is hostile to the common good, but enlightened self-interest is not. And this is the best key to the meaning of enlightenment.

  Allan Bloom

  Keys, Self, Enlightenment

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.167, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

• The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers, not because he is obstinate but because he knows others worthy of consideration.

  Allan Bloom

  Inspiring, Education, Philosophy

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.21, Simon and Schuster

  29 Copy quote

• Law may prescribe that the male nipples be made equal to the female ones, but they still will not give milk.

  Allan Bloom

  Law, Giving, Milk

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.131, Simon and Schuster

  20 Copy quote

• There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.

  Allan Bloom

  Believe, Entering, Students

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.25, Simon and Schuster

  16 Copy quote

• I am now even more persuaded of the urgent need to study why Socrates was accused. The dislike of philosophy is perennial, and the seeds of the condemnation of Socrates are present at all times, not in the bosoms of pleasure-seekers, who don't give a damn, but in those of high-minded and idealistic persons who do not want to submit their aspirations to examination.

  Allan Bloom

  Philosophy, Giving, Want

  "Giants and Dwarfs". Book by Allan Bloom. Chapter: "Western Civ," p. 19, 1990.

  4 Copy quote

• Education is not the taming or domestication of the soul's raw passions - not suppressing them or excising them, which would deprive the soul of its energy - but forming and informing them as art.

  Allan Bloom

  Education, Art, Passion

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.71, Simon and Schuster

  13 Copy quote

• Commitment is a word invented in our abstract modernity to signify the absence of any real motives in the soul for moral dedication.

  Allan Bloom

  Real, Commitment, Dedication

  Allan Bloom (1988). “Closing of the American Mind”, Simon & Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• The artist is the most interesting of all phenomena, for he represents creativity, the definition of man.

  Allan Bloom

  Creativity, Artist, Men

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.206, Simon and Schuster

  24 Copy quote

• Fathers and mothers have lost the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their children is for them to be wise... specialized competence and success are all that they can imagine.

  Allan Bloom

  Inspiring, Mothers Day, Wise

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.58, Simon and Schuster

  14 Copy quote

• Once the law is broken with impunity, each man regains the right to any means he deems proper or necessary in order to defend himself against the new tyrant, the one who can break the law.

  Allan Bloom

  Mean, Men, Order

  17 Copy quote

• Reason transformed into prejudice is the worst form of prejudice, because reason is the only instrument for liberation from prejudice.

  Allan Bloom

  Prejudice, Reason, Form

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.253, Simon and Schuster

  14 Copy quote

• A serious life means being fully aware of the alternatives, thinking about them with all the intensity one brings to bear on life-and-death questions, in full recognition that every choice is a great risk with necessary consequences that are hard to bear.

  Allan Bloom

  Mean, Thinking, Life And Death

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.227, Simon and Schuster

  10 Copy quote

• The most important function of the university in an age of reason is to protect reason from itself.

  Allan Bloom

  Important, Age, Reason

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.253, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• We are like ignorant shepherds living on a site where great civilizations once flourished. The shepherds play with the fragments that pop up to the surface, having no notion of the beautiful structures of which they were once a part.

  Allan Bloom

  Beautiful, Civilization, Play

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.239, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• Life, liberty, and the pursuit of property were just what Aristotle did not talk about. They are the conditions of happiness; but the essence of happiness, according to Aristotle, is virtue. So the moderns decided to deal with the conditions and to let happiness take care of itself.

  Allan Bloom

  Essence, Liberty, Care

  "Giants and Dwarfs". Book by Allan Bloom. Chapter: "Commerce and Culture," p. 284, 1990.

  4 Copy quote

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