Political philosophy Quotes

“An inconsistent political philosophy is that which feeds our battle yet starves our victory.”

“We try to show that the well-ordered society of justice as fairness is indeed possible according to our nature and those requirements. This endeavor belongs to political philosophy as reconciliation; for seeing that the conditions of a social world at least allow for that possibility affects our view of the world itself and our attitude toward it. No longer need it seem hopelessly hostile, a world in which the will to dominate and oppressive cruelties, abetted by prejudice and folly, must inevitably prevail. None of these may ease our loss, situated as we may be in a corrupt society. But we may reflect that the world is not in itself inhospitable to political justice and its good. Our social world might have been different and there is hope for those at another time and place”

“Men have special needs too: for example, a man generally needs a higher daily intake of calories than a woman. But this has never been though of as a sign of men's inferiority to women; if anything, it is a sign of strength and an entitlement to extra food.”

“Any political philosophy is perfect in a given moment...but moments are fleeting.”

“Leo Strauss's discoveries in the history of political philosophy had the effect of liberating his students from the yoke of contemporary thought.”

“While you're governing the colony and I'm writing political philosophy, They'll never guess that in the darkness of night we sneak into each other's room and play checkers and have pillow fights.”

“Revolution was never sparked by political philosophy. It has ever been the price of bread that shakes the pillars of the world. Yet they lock up the thinkers and leave the bakers free.”

“It was no accident that the beau ideal of his (John Adams') political philosophy was balance, since he projected onto the world the conflicting passions he felt inside himself and regarded government as the balancing mechanism that prevented those factions and furies from spending out of control.”

“A colleague once described political theorists as people who were obsessed with two dozen books; after half a century of grappling with Mill's essay On Liberty, or Hobbes's Leviathan, I have sometimes thought two dozen might be a little on the high side.”