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Leo Strauss on Education

1899–1973 Germany

← All quotes by Leo Strauss

6 quotes

Liberal education is the ladder by which we try to ascend from mass democracy to democracy as originally meant.

Liberalism: Ancient and Modern (1968)

Liberal education reminds those members of a mass democracy who have ears to hear, of human greatness.

Liberalism: Ancient and Modern (1968)

Education to perfect gentlemanship, to human excellence, liberal education consists in reminding oneself of human excellence, of human greatness.

Liberalism: Ancient and Modern (1968)

Liberal education is the necessary endeavor to found an aristocracy within democratic mass society.

Liberalism: Ancient and Modern (1968)

Liberal education is liberation from vulgarity. The Greeks had a beautiful word for “vulgarity”; they called it apeirokalia, lack of experience in things beautiful. Liberal education supplies us with experience in things beautiful.

Liberalism: Ancient and Modern (1968)

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.

Liberalism: Ancient and Modern (1968)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Leo Strauss (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.