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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.

— Leo Strauss Liberalism: Ancient and Modern (1968)

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More quotes by Leo Strauss

The problem inherent in the surface of things, and only in the surface of things, is the heart of things.

Thoughts on Machiavelli (1958)

The silence of a wise man is always meaningful.

Thoughts on Machiavelli (1958)

It is of the essence of traditions that they cover or conceal their humble foundations by erecting impressive edifices on them.

Natural Right and History (1953)

It is as absurd to expect members of philosophy departments to be philosophers as it is to expect members of art departments to be artists.

Liberalism: Ancient and Modern (1968)

Philosophizing means, then, to ascend from public dogma to essentially private knowledge.

Natural Right and History (1953)

All Leo Strauss quotes →

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All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

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The greater part of humanity is too much harassed and fatigued by the struggle with want, to rally itself for a new and sterner struggle with error.

Friedrich Schiller On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)

Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.

Bertrand Russell

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Leo Strauss (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.