Intellectuality Quotes

However, his contemporary, Leibnitz, the father of the German enlightenment, who created an optimistic world-picture, always remained only a philosopher for philosophers. Even Immanuel Kant, although always famous, was never popular. In his own fatherland he was all but forgotten for most of the nineteenth century until revived by Hermann Cohen and his school. Spinoza, however, was never exhumed because he was never buried. Kant, because of his exclusive intellectuality, has influenced only his students, while Spinoza, because of his emotional appeal, has ruled even those who have never heard his name. (Baruch Spinoza)

Is it because Westerners have come to lose their intellectuality through over-developing their capacity for action that they console themselves by inventing theories which set action above everything, and even go so far, as in the case of pragmatism, as to deny that there exists anything of value beyond action; or is the contrary true, that it is the acceptance of this point of view that has led to the intellectual atrophy we see today?

René Guénon

There can be only one way out of the chaos, in the social domain as in all others: the restoration of intellectuality, which would result in the formation once more of an elect.

René Guénon

But I have bad taste with a deep fount of intellectuality.

Mel Brooks

Infinite power of the spirit, brought to bear upon matter evolves material development, made to act upon thought evolves intellectuality, and made to act upon itself makes of man a God. First, let us be Gods, and then help other to be GOds. Be and Make. Let this be our motto.

Swami Vivekananda

The traditional sciences ... constitute ... a preparation for a higher knowledge and a way of approach to it, and by virtue of their hierarchical arrangement according to the levels of existence to which they refer, they form, as it were, so many rungs by which it is possible to climb to the level of pure intellectuality. It is only too clear that modern sciences cannot in any way serve either of these purposes; this is why they can be no more than "profane science,” whereas the traditional sciences ... are effectively incorporated in "sacred science.”.

René Guénon

The guiding function exercised by a true elect, and even the very existence of this elect-since it must exercise this function if it exists at all-is utterly incompatible with democracy. ... A real elect, as we have said, can only be an intellectual one; and that is why democracy can arise only where pure intellectuality no longer exists, as is the case in the modern world.

René Guénon

I saw my father for the last time in 1916... The texts of the various legends and songs he had written or dictated...perhaps, by some miracle...may still be preserved among the things I left... The individuality and intellectuality of my father can, in my opinion, be very well pictured in the mind's eye of the reader if I quote here a few of his many favourite 'subjective sayings', which he often used in conversation... when he himself used these sayings in conversation, it always seemed... that they could not have been more apt or better put, but that if anyone else made use of them, they seemed to be entirely beside the point or improbable nonsense. Some of these subjective sayings of his were as follows:.

G. I. Gurdjieff