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Allan Bloom Quotes
1930–1992 United States
Allan David Bloom (14 September, 1930 in Indianapolis, Indiana – 7 October, 1992 in Chicago, Illinois) was an American philosopher, essayist and academic. Bloom championed education based on the study of 'Great Books', as did his mentor Leo Strauss.
United States Academics Educators Essayists Historians Also known as: Allan David Bloom, Bloom, Allan
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43 quotes
The philosopher wants to know things as they are. He loves the truth. That is an intellectual virtue. He does not love to tell the truth. That is a moral virtue. Presumably he would prefer not to practice deception; but if it is a condition of his survival, he has no objection to it. The hopes of changing mankind almost always end up in changing not mankind but one’s thought.
Sycophancy toward those who hold power is a fact in every regime, and especially in a democracy, where, unlike tyranny, there is an accepted principle of legitimacy that breaks the inner will to resist. … Flattery of the people and incapacity to resist public opinion are the democratic vices, particularly among writers, artists, journalists and anyone else who is dependent on an audience.
In the new order a Locke was free—with almost no danger of being interfered with—to think his sublime thoughts, to seek the first causes of all things, to understand the nature of things. He could talk with his friends and teach the young. And there was money enough. The academies and universities satisfied Socrates’ demand to be fed in the prytaneum.
Giants and Dwarfs (1990)
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