Julien Benda: Activation

Julien Benda was French essayist. Explore interesting quotes on activation.

Julien Benda: 38 quotes0 likes

“The modern moralists extol … the cult of practical activity in defiance of the disinterested life.”

Source: Treason of the Intellectuals (1927), p. 146

“That teaching according to which intellectual activity is worthy of esteem to the extent that it is practical and to that extent alone.”

Source: Treason of the Intellectuals (1927), p. 151

“That teaching of modern metaphysics which exhorts man to feel comparatively little esteem for the truly thinking portion of himself and to honor the active and willing part of himself with all his devotion…”

Source: Treason of the Intellectuals (1927), p. 149

“Since the Greeks the predominant attitude of thinkers towards intellectual activity was to glorify it insofar as (like aesthetic activity) it finds its satisfaction in itself, apart from any attention to the advantages it may procure. Most thinkers would have agreed with … Renan’s verdict that the man who loves science for its fruits commits the worst of blasphemies against that divinity. … The modern clercs have violently torn up this charter. They proclaim the intellectual functions are only respectable to the extent that they are bound up with the pursuit of concrete advantage.”

Source: Treason of the Intellectuals (1927), pp. 151–152