
Dean Acheson, former clerk to Justice Brandeis, after Brandeis’s death in 1941.
Ibid., p. 9
The Education of the Stoic
Dean Acheson, former clerk to Justice Brandeis, after Brandeis’s death in 1941.
Elvis Presley Was Always Too Busy to Vote for President http://elvis-history-blog.com/elvis-voting.html
“The moral nature of man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature.”
Rose, Blanche, and Violet (London: Smith, Elder, 1848) vol. 1, pp. viii-ix
Context: The moral nature of man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature. I know they cannot be divorced — that without intelligence we should be Brutes — but it is the tendency of our gaping, wondering dispositions to give pre-eminence to those faculties which most astonish us. Strength of character seldom, if ever, astonishes; goodness, lovingness, and quiet self-sacrifice, are worth all the talents in the world.
“Moral liberty and intellectual objectivity constitute a priori man’s deiformity.”
[2014, In the Face of the Absolute, World Wisdom, 9, 978-1-936597-41-3]
Human being, Deiformity
Preface of M. Quetelet
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
Context: The analysis of the moral man through his actions, and of the intellectual man through his productions, seems to me calculated to form one of the most interesting parts of the sciences of observation, applied to anthropology.
“The intellectual and moral nature of man is the one thing precious in the sight of God”
Source: Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1872), p. 183
Context: The intellectual and moral nature of man is the one thing precious in the sight of God; and therefore, until this nature is cultivated, and enlightened, and purified, neither opulence, nor power, nor learning, nor genius, nor domestic sanctity, nor the holiness of God's altars, can ever be safe. Until the immortal and god-like capacities of every being that comes iuto the world are deemed more worthy, are watched more tenderly than any other thing, no dynasty of men, or form of government, can stand, or shall stand, upon the face of the earth; and the force or the fraud which would seek to uphold them, shall be but "as fetters of flax to bind the flame."
“I'm a man of honour, a truthful person, a gentleman of absolute morality.”
As quoted in "La Repubblica" (13 July 2003)
2003
“Reason can never be the absolute dictator of man’s mental or moral economy.”
What the New Atheists Don't See http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_4_oh_to_be.html (Autumn 2007).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)
Introduction : The Reason for the Examination
A Perplexed Philosopher (1892)
Context: The respect for authority, the presumption in favor of those who have won intellectual reputation, is within reasonable limits, both prudent and becoming. But it should not be carried too far, and there are some things especially as to which it behooves us all to use our own judgment and to maintain free minds. For not only does the history of the world show that undue deference to authority has been the potent agency through which errors have been enthroned and superstitions perpetuated, but there are regions of thought in which the largest powers and the greatest acquirements cannot guard against aberrations or assure deeper insight. One may stand on a box and look over the heads of his fellows, but he no better sees the stars. The telescope and the microscope reveal depths which to the unassisted vision are closed. Yet not merely do they bring us no nearer to the cause of suns and animal-cula, but in looking through them the observer must shut his eyes to what lies about him. That intension is at the expense of extension is seen in the mental as in the physical sphere. A man of special learning may be a fool as to common relations. And that he who passes for an intellectual prince may be a moral pauper there are examples enough to show.