The fear of speculation, the ostensible rush from the theoretical to the practical, brings about the same shallowness in action that it does in knowledge. It is by studying a strictly theoretical philosophy that we become most acquainted with Ideas, and only Ideas provide action with vigour and ethical meaning.
Interpretation
The pursuit of knowledge should be deep and theoretical to enrich action with meaning and vigor.
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling argues that a superficial rush to practical action without deep theoretical understanding leads to shallowness in both knowledge and behavior. He emphasizes the importance of a rigorous study of philosophy and ideas, suggesting that such intellectual engagement is essential for meaningful and vigorous action in the world.
In practice
In a lecture on the importance of theoretical knowledge in education.
One is almost tempted to say that the language itself is a mythology deprived of its vitality, a bloodless mythology so to speak, which has only preserved in a formal and abstract form what mythology contains in living and concrete form.
Much of what is euphemistically known as the middle class, merely because it dresses up to go to work, is now reduced to proletarian conditions of existence. Many white-collar jobs require no more skill and pay even less than blue-collar jobs, conferring little status or security.
Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.
Curtailment of free speech is rationalized on grounds that a more compelling American tradition forbids criticism of the government when the nation is at war... Nothing can be more destructive of our fundamental democratic traditions than the vicious effort to silence dissenters.
The man who fights for his fellow-man is a better man than the one who fights for himself.
Man is nothing; he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him" and "you dishonour God by denying election. You plainly make salvation depend, not on God's 'free grace' but on Man's 'free will.'
Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.