16 Quotes by Michael Joseph Oakeshott

Like Midas, the Rationalist is always in the unfortunate position of not being able to touch anything, without transforming it into an abstraction; he can never get a square meal of experience.

To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.

The rule of law bakes no bread, it is unable to distribute loaves or fishes (it has none), and it cannot protect itself against external assault, but it remains the most civilized and least burdensome conception of a state yet to be devised.

The politics of our society are a conversation in which past, present and future each has a voice; and though one or other of them may on occasion properly prevail none permanently dominates, and on this account we are free.

To try to do something which is inherently impossible is always a corrupting enterprise.

The man of conservative temperament believes that a known good is not lightly to be surrendered for an unknown better.

Every human being is born an heir to an inheritance to which he can succeed only in a process of learning.

Economics is not an attempt to generalize human desires or human behavior; but to generalize the phenomena of price.

The conjunction of ruling and dreaming generates tyranny.