Skip to content

Ideals are not summaries of the empirical facts about human personality and behaviour: they are the standards by reference to which we pass judgment on the facts. Since ideals are not empirical generalizations, to cite counterinstances, however plentiful, would merely be to betray one’s total failure to understand the nature of the subject-matter under discussion.

— R. W. K. Paterson The New Patricians (1998)

Another quote →

More quotes by R. W. K. Paterson

The refusal to make the truth of nihilism one’s own and build one’s life entirely within its shadow is indeed a refusal of existentialism itself.

The Nihilistic Egoist: Max Stirner (1971)

We want to know not merely what men have been, even the best men of their day, but what men can and ought to be.

The New Patricians (1998)

The version of reality a man adopts will depend largely on his values.

The New Patricians (1998)

They are supposed to be mature, and it is on this necessary supposition that their adulthood justifiably rests.

Values, education and the adult (1979)

Education refers to no particular process; rather it encapsulates criteria to which any one of a family of processes must conform."

Values, education and the adult (1979)

All R. W. K. Paterson quotes →

Attribution

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