#intellectuals

Or why should one refrain from burning hatred, whatever its basis--race, class, or ideology? Such hatred is in fact corroding many hearts today. Atheist teachers in the West are bringing up a younger generation in a spirit of hatred of their own society. Amid all the vituperation we forget that the defects of capitalism represent the basic flaws of human nature, allowed unlimited freedom together with the various human rights; we forget that under Communism (and Communism is breathing down the neck of all moderate forms of socialism, which are unstable) the identical flaws run riot in any person with the least degree of authority; while everyone else under that system does indeed attain 'equality'--the equality of destitute slaves. This eager fanning of the flames of hatred is becoming the mark of today's free world. Indeed, the broader the personal freedoms are, the higher the level of prosperity or even of abundance--the more vehement, paradoxically, does this blind hatred become. The contemporary developed West thus demonstrates by its own example that human salvation can be found neither in the profusion of material goods nor in merely making money. ↗

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

#communism #socialism #western-intellectuals #equality

Two classes of people make up the world: those who have found God, and those who are looking for Him - thirsting, hungering, seeking! And the great sinners came closer to Him than the proud intellectuals! Pride swells and inflates the ego; gross sinners are depressed, deflated and empty. They, therefore, have room for God. God prefers a loving sinner to a loveless 'saint'. Love can be trained; pride cannot. The man who thinks that he knows will rarely find truth; the man who knows he is a miserable, unhappy sinner, like the woman at the well, is closer to peace, joy and salvation than he knows. ↗

— Fulton J. Sheen

#humility #intellectuals #sinners #life

I cleaned the shit off my pink high-tops and drove home, stopping for an espresso at the coffeehouse across from the college. Men and women were hunched over copies of Jean Paul Sartre and writing in their journals. Most wore the thin-rimmed tortoiseshell glasses favored by intellectuals. Their clothes were faded to a precisely fashionable degree; you can buy them that way from catalogs now, new clothes processed to look old. The intellectuals looked at me in my overalls the way such people inevitably look at farmers. I dumped a lot of sugar in my espresso and sipped it delicately at a corner table near the door. I looked at them the way farmers look at intellectuals. ↗

— Mary Rose O'Reilley

#coffee #farmers #fashion #intellectuals #spirituality

We have too many intellectuals who are afraid to use the pistol of common sense. ↗

— Samuel Fuller

#common #common sense #intellectuals #many #pistol

The role of genius is not to complicate the simple, but to simplify the complicated. ↗

— Criss Jami

#complication #genius #intelligence #practicality #practicality-for-intellectuals

Intellectuals try to keep going. But their situation is very difficult. Those who have had the courage to voice their opposition have often paid a very high price. ↗

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

#difficult #going #had #high #high price

My favourite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence. [Sources and Acknowledgements: Chapter 19] ↗

— Arthur C. Clarke

#intellectuals #intelligence #education

Intellectualism came very late to America. That's why Americans are so proud of it. I found very few real intellectuals in America. But there are so many pseudo-intellectuals. ↗

— Douglas Sirk

#came #few #found #i #intellectualism

Country and western is ignored by the intellectuals. They don't look at it as an art form. They think it's just somebody sitting on his couch singing about his life. ↗

— Ricky Skaggs

#art #art form #couch #country #form

If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good ↗

— Ezra Pound

#courage #criticism #intellectuals #opinion #taboos