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Quote by Allan Bloom

“We need history, not to tell us what happened or to explain the past, but to make the past alive so that it can explain us and make a future possible.”

Quote by Allan Bloom

Book:Closing of the American Mind

Work

Closing of the American Mind

A seminal work analyzing the impact of modern intellectual movements on American society and culture. more

Author

Allan Bloom was an influential American philosopher, born on September 14, 1930, and died on October 7, 1992. He is one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, known for his profound understanding and unique insights into Western philosophy. more

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“Human nature must not be altered in order to have a problem-free world. Man is not just a problem-solving being, as behaviorists would wish us to believe, but a problem-recognizing and -accepting being.”

Men World Believe Humans Problem Order Wish Accepting Human Nature Problem Solving Being Human Recognizing Altered Free World Problem Free

Author:Allan Bloom

“Freedom of the mind requires not only, or not even especially the absence of legal constraints but the presence of alternative thoughts.”

Mind Liberty Absence Alternatives Constraints

Author:Allan Bloom

“All literature up to today is sexist. The Muses never sang to the poets about liberated women. It's the same old chanson from the Bible and Homer through Joyce and Proust.”

Men Today Literature Poet Men And Women Muse Liberated Sexist Joyce Proust Liberated Woman

Book:Closing of the American Mind

Source: Closing of the American Mind

“There is a perennial and unobtrusive view that morality consists in such things as telling the truth, paying one's debts, respecting one's parents and doing no voluntary harm to anyone. Those are all things easy to say and hard to do; they do not attract much attention, and win little honor in the world.”

World Littles Hard Winning Easy Parent Views Attention Honor Morality All Things Debt Harm Telling The Truth

Author:Allan Bloom

“Openness, as currently conceived, is a way of making surrender to whatever is most powerful, or worship of vulgar success, look principled.”

Way Looks Powerful Worship Surrender Most Powerful Openness Vulgar Principled

Book:Closing of the American Mind

Source: Closing of the American Mind

“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.”

Knows Forget Philosopher Greek Professors Smarter Interpreter

Author:Allan Bloom

“The facile economic and psychological debunking of the theoretical life cannot do away with its irreducible beauties.”

Economic Philosopher Psychological Theoretical

Book:Closing of the American Mind

Source: Closing of the American Mind

“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.”

Thinking Mean Hard Choices Risk Serious Bears Consequence Recognition Alternatives Life And Death Intensity Seriousness Life Means Great Risk Serious Life

Book:Closing of the American Mind

Source: Closing of the American Mind

“Never did I think that the university was properly ministerial to the society around it. Rather I thought and think that society is ministerial to the university, and I bless a society that tolerates and supports an eternal childhood for some, a childhood whose playfulness can in turn be a blessing to society.”

Thinking Turns Support Childhood Blessing Eternal University Bless Tolerate Scholarship Playfulness

Book:Closing of the American Mind

Source: Closing of the American Mind

“University convention submerges nature. It issues licenses, and hunting without one is forbidden.”

Issues University Conventions Hunting Forbidden License Scholarship Licenses

Author:Allan Bloom