Quotes from Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays — Michael Oakeshott
1901–1990 England
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3 quotes
By one road or another, by conviction, by its supposed inevitability, by its alleged success, or even quite unreflectively, almost all politics today have become Rationalist or near-Rationalist.
Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (1962)
Poetry is a sort of truancy, a dream within the dream of life, a wild flower planted among our wheat.
"Political Education" (1951)
Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (1962)
Rationalism in politics, as I have interpreted it, involves an identifiable error, a misconception with regard to the nature of human knowledge, which amounts to a corruption of the mind. And consequently it is without the power to correct its own short-comings; it has no homeopathic quality; you cannot escape its errors by becoming more sincerely or more profoundly rationalistic.
Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (1962)