We need history, not to tell us what happened or to explain the past, but to make the past alive so that it can explain us and make a future possible.
Allan BloomAn education, other than purely professional or technical, can even seem to be an impediment.
Allan BloomVarious kinds of self-forgetting, usually accompanied by illusions and myths, make it possible to live without the intransigent facing of death-in the sense of always thinking about it and what it means for life and the things dear in life-which is characteristic of a serious life.
Allan BloomThese sociologists who talk to facilely about the sacred are like a man who keeps a toothless old circus lion around the house in order to experience the thrills of the jungle.
Allan Bloom