Knowledge for its own sake was meaningless, its mere accumulation a waste of time. Knowledge must lead to understanding.

Ideal goals are a menace in themselves, as much in more modern philosophers as in Plato.

Knowledge for its own sake was meaningless, its mere accumulation a waste of time. Knowledge must lead to understanding.

A genuinely political society, in which discussion and debate are an essential technique, is a society full of risks.

Faction is the greatest evil and the most common danger. "Faction" is the conventional English translation of the Greek stasis, one of the most remarkable words to be found in any language.

Historical explanation is not identical with moral judgment.

It is a mark of civilised man that he seeks to understand his traditions, and to criticise them, not to swallow them whole.