“The most superficial fact regarding the Discourses, the fact that the number of its chapters equals the number of books of Livy's History, compelled us to start a chain of tentative reasoning which brings us suddenly face to face with the only New Testament quotation that ever appears in Machiavelli's two books and with an enormous blasphemy.”
Source: Thoughts on Machiavelli (1958), p. 49
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Leo Strauss 78
Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservati… 1899–1973Related quotes
“Can any farmer, mechanic, or scientist find in the New Testament one useful fact?”
A Thanksgiving Sermon (1897)
Context: Did Christ or any of his apostles add to the sum of useful knowledge? Did they say one word in favor of any science, of any art? Did they teach their fellow-men how to make a living, how to overcome the obstructions of nature, how to prevent sickness—how to protect themselves from pain, from famine, from misery and rags? Did they explain any of the phenomena of nature? Any of the facts that affect the life of man? Did they say anything in favor of investigation—of study—of thought? Did they teach the gospel of self-reliance, of industry—of honest effort? Can any farmer, mechanic, or scientist find in the New Testament one useful fact? Is there anything in the sacred book that can help the geologist, the astronomer, the biologist, the physician, the inventor—the manufacturer of any useful thing?
“The Quantum Universe has a quotation from me in every chapter — but it's a damn good book anyway.”
Review blurb for the first edition of The Quantum Universe http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521564573 (1987)
Source: La Vita Nuova (1293), Chapter I, opening lines (as reported in The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time by Leslie Pockell)
“A book brings its own history to the reader.”
The Last Page, p. 16.
A History of Reading (1996)
A xix
Critique of Pure Reason (1781; 1787)
Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale