A conservative, I take it, is a man who despises vulgarity; but the argument which is concerned exclusively with calculations of success, and is based on blindness to the nobility of the effort, is vulgar.
Leo StraussRead
The Jewish people and their fate are the living witness for the absence of redemption. This, one could say, is the meaning of the chosen people; the Jews are chosen to prove the absence of redemption.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights how the Jewish people's experiences serve as a profound commentary on the concept of redemption.
In this quote, Leo Strauss suggests that the Jewish people symbolize a unique existential reality where their historical suffering and trials illustrate a deeper philosophical truth regarding redemption. Instead of being a promise of salvation, their collective experience reveals the complexities and often harsh realities of life, leading to the contemplation of what it means to be 'chosen' not for privilege but as a testament to life's challenges.
Themes
JudaismRedemptionSufferingExistentialismChosenPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on existential philosophy, I referenced this quote to illustrate the complexities of suffering.
More from Leo Strauss
All quotes →No bloody or unbloody change of society can eradicate the evil in man: as long as there will be men, there will be malice, envy and hatred, and hence there cannot be a society which does not have to employ coercive restraint.
Leo StraussRead
If the highest things are unknowable, then the highest capacity or virtue of man cannot be theoretical wisdom.
Leo StraussRead
The silence of a wise man is always meaningful.
Leo StraussRead
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Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity than straigthforward and simple integrity in another. A knave would rather quarrel with a brother knave than with a fool, but he would rather avoid a quarrel with one honest man than with both. He can combat a fool by management and address, and he can conquer a knave by temptations. But the honest man is neither to be bamboozled nor bribed.
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What I am is a heretic who's recanted and, thereby, in everyone's eyes, saved his soul. Everyone's eyes but one, who knows deep down inside that all he has saved is his skin.
Robert M. PirsigRead