“It is safer to try to understand the low in the light of the high than the high in the light of the low.”

— Leo Strauss

Source: Liberalism Ancient and Modern (1968), p. 225
Context: It is safer to try to understand the low in the light of the high than the high in the light of the low. In doing the latter one necessarily distorts the high, whereas in doing the former one does not deprive the low of the freedom to reveal itself as fully as what it is.

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Leo Strauss 78

Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservati… 1899–1973

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