28 quotes
A philosopher's renown is increased more by inventing a new error than by repeating a truth that has already been expressed by others.
The Crisis of the Modern World (1927)
If an idea is true, it belongs equally to all who are capable of understanding it.
The Crisis of the Modern World (1927)
Dante's corpus as a whole is in certain respects like a testament to the closing medieval age; it shows what the Western world would have been had it not broken from its tradition.
Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power (1929)
It is worth noting that Protestantism suppresses the clergy, and though it claims to uphold the authority of the Bible, it in fact ruins it by 'free inquiry'.
Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power (1929)
The true function of the priesthood, then, is above all one of knowledge and teaching, and this is why, as we said above, its proper attribute is wisdom.
Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power (1929)
There can be only one way out of the chaos, in the social domain as in all others: the restoration of intellectuality, which would result in the formation once more of an elite.
The Crisis of the Modern World (1927)
The “end of a world” never is and never can be anything but the end of an illusion.
The Reign of Quantity and Signs of the Times (1945)
Metaphysics, because it opens out a limitless vista of possibilities, must take care never to lose sight of the inexpressible, which indeed constitutes its very essence.
Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines (1921)
From the social point of view as from all others, instability is as it were at its maximum, disorder and confusion are everywhere, and humanity has surely never been further from the 'Terrestrial Paradise' and from primordial spirituality.
Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power (1929)
The belief in indefinite progress is, all told, nothing more than the most ingenuous and the grossest of all kinds of ‘optimism’; whatever forms this belief may take, it is always sentimental in essence, even when it is concerned with ‘material progress’.
The truth is that there is really no "profane realm" that could in any way be opposed to a "sacred realm"; there is only a "profane point of view", which is really none other than the point of view of ignorance.
Initiation And Spiritual Realization (1952)
The relationship between these two powers may be expressed by saying that the pope must keep for himself the golden key to the 'Celestial Paradise' and entrust to the emperor the silver key to the 'Terrestrial Paradise'.
Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power (1929)
There are people whose mind would recoil from actual negation, but who have no objection to complete indifference; this is what is most to be feared, for to deny something one must think about it to some extent, however little that may be, whereas an attitude of indifference makes it possible not to think about it at all.
The Crisis of the Modern World (1927)
The masses are made to believe that they are not being led, but that they are acting spontaneously and governing themselves, and the fact that they believe this is a sign from which the extent of their stupidity may be inferred.
The Crisis of the Modern World (1927)
There is an exact correspondence between a world where everything seems to be in a state of mere 'becoming', leaving no place for the changeless and the permanent, and the state of mind of men who find all reality in this 'becoming', thus implicitly denying true knowledge as well as the object of that knowledge, namely transcendent and universal principles.
The Crisis of the Modern World (1927)
The so-called religious convictions of many people [amount to] a few notions learnt by heart, in a purely mechanical and schoolboy way, which they have never assimilated, to which they have never devoted serious thought, [and] which they store in their memory and repeat on occasion as part of a certain convention or formal attitude which is all they understand by the name of religion.
What is to be said of someone who flings himself into the Ocean and has no aspiration but to drown himself in it? This is precisely the significance of the so-called "fusion" with a "cosmic consciousness" which is really nothing but the confused and indistinct assemblage of all the psychic influences.
The Reign of Quantity and Signs of the Times (1945)
If the 'priesthood' is in essence the depository of traditional knowledge, this is not to say that it has a monopoly on it, since its mission is not only to conserve it integrally but also to communicate it to all who are fit to receive it, to distribute it hierarchically, so to speak, according to the intellectual capacity of each.
Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power (1929)
The dependence of the temporal power on the spiritual authority has its visible sign in the anointing of kings, who are not truly 'legitimized' until they have received investiture and consecration from the hands of the priesthood, implying the transmission of a 'spiritual influence' necessary for the regular exercise of their function.
Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power (1929)
This idea of a national church first appeared in Protestant countries; or, to be more exact, it was perhaps above all to realize this idea that Protestantism was instigated, for it seems clear that Luther was hardly anything more, at least politically, than an instrument of the ambitions of certain German princes.
Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power (1929)