52 Quotes by Richard M. Weaver

It will be found that every attack upon religion, or upon characteristic ideas inherited from religion, when its assumptions are laid bare, turns out to be an attack upon mind.

Hysterical optimism will prevail until the world again admits the existence of tragedy, and it cannot admit the existence of tragedy until it again distinguishes between good and evil. . . Hysterical optimism as a sin against knowledge.

Piety is a discipline of the will through respect. It admits the right to exist of things larger than the ego, of things different from the ego.

The typical modern has the look of the hunted.

[I]f we feel that creation does not express purpose, it is impossible to find an authorization for purpose in our own lives.

Civilization has been an intermittent phenomenon; to this truth we have allowed ourselves to be blinded by the insolence of material success.

The scientists have given [modern man] the impression that there is nothing he cannot know, and false propagandists have told him that there is nothing he cannot have.

No society is healthy which tells its members to take no thought of the morrow because the state underwrites their future.

The modern state does not comprehend how anyone can be guided by something other than itself. In its eyes pluralism is treason.