Allan Bloom

Students now arrive at the university ignorant and cynical about our political heritage, lacking the wherewithal to be either inspired by it or seriously critical of it. ↗

— Allan Bloom

#arrive #critical #cynical #either #heritage

The most important function of the university in an age of reason is to protect reason from itself. ↗

— Allan Bloom

#function #important #itself #most #protect

The real community of man is the community of those who seek the truth, of the potential knowers. ↗

— Allan Bloom

#man #potential #real #seek #those

The spirit is at home, if not entirely satisfied, in America. ↗

— Allan Bloom

#entirely #home #satisfied #spirit

There is no real teacher who in practice does not believe in the existence of the soul, or in a magic that acts on it through speech. ↗

— Allan Bloom

#believe #does #existence #magic #practice

There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. ↗

— Allan Bloom

#almost #believes #certain #entering #every

Reason cannot establish values, and its belief that it can is the stupidiest and most pernicious illusion. ↗

— Allan Bloom

#cannot #establish #illusion #most #pernicious

Fathers and mothers have lost the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their children is for them to be wise... specialized competence and success are all that they can imagine. ↗

— Allan Bloom

#aspiration #children #competence #fathers #highest

The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers, not because he is obstinate but because he knows others worthy of consideration. ↗

— Allan Bloom

#answers #because #consideration #easy #educated

Only Socrates knew, after a lifetime of unceasing labor, that he was ignorant. Now every high-school student knows that. How did it become so easy? ↗

— Allan Bloom

#become #did #easy #every #high-school