The most important thing about the gentleman was that he was an idealist. ... He was bred up to a code of self-restraint which taught resistance to pragmatic temptation. He was definitely a man of sentiment, who refused to put matters on a basis of materialism and self-aggrandizement.
Richard M. WeaverThe modern position seems only another manifestation of egotism, which develops when man has reached a point at which he will no longer admit the rights to existence of things not of his own contriving.
Richard M. WeaverBeneath the surface of repartee and mock seriousness, [Plato's Phaedrus] is asking whether we ought to prefer a neuter form of speech to the kind which is ever getting us aroused over things and provoking an expense of spirit.
Richard M. WeaverThe aristocratic mind ... is anti-analytical. It is concerned more with the status of being than with the demonstrable relationship of parts.
Richard M. WeaverThe man of culture finds the whole past relevant; the bourgeois and the barbarian find relevant only what has some pressing connection with their appetite.
Richard M. WeaverIt is an ancient belief, going back to classical antiquity, that specialization of any kind is illiberal in a freeman. A man willing to bury himself in the details of some small endeavor has been considered lost to these larger considerations which must occupy the mind of the ruler.
Richard M. Weaver