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Machiavelli was aware of the limitations of technical knowledge; it was not Machiavelli himself, but his followers, who believed in the sovereignty of technique, who believed that government was nothing more than 'public administration' and could be learned from a book.

— Michael Oakeshott Rationalism in Politics (1947)

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More quotes by Michael Oakeshott

Whatever is satisfactory in experience is true, and it is true because it is satisfactory.

Experience and Its Modes (1933)

Experience to be experience must be reality; truth to be true must be true of reality. Experience, truth and reality are inseparable.

Experience and Its Modes (1933)

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)

Understanding is not such that we either enjoy it or lack it altogether. To be human and to be aware is to encounter only what is in some manner understood. Thus, it may be said that understanding is an unsought condition; we inexorably inhabit a world of intelligibles.

On Human Conduct (1975)

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)

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