Early Political Writings 1925-30 Quotes

“A so-called ideal scheme which does not grow out of reality is definitely and finally not ideal at all.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings.’ Ruskin”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“To theorize’ means, to see as a whole. The actual is a small part of the whole, or a single aspect of it, which, when taken by itself is, by reason of its incompleteness, both meaningless and comparatively unreal. To see the actual in its wholeness is to see it filled out with all that it implies, supplemented by that which gives it meaning.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“For a great state, qua state, is not one which embraces a great population or an extensive territory, but one which achieves a great intensity of social unity. And in this matter we must bear in mind that unity means unity of purpose and will, and not merely unity of action and result. One of the most significant reasons for refusing to attribute an unlimited degree of statehood to those associations which are legally known as states, is that their size is governed by considerations of commerce, mere whim, or by other limited ends, rather than by reference to the good life or the excellence of souls.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“the first rule of Moritz Haupt for interpreting the classics,—‘Man soll nicht übersetzen.’ [‘Do not translate’:”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“a child might possibly change his country; a man can only wish that he might change it.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“The real, if it is anything, is a coherent whole, it is a unity so unified as to preclude the possibility of disunity. And this is what we have called the truth. The real thing is the thing as it truly exists. The true thing, the thing as it exists in its wholeness, is the real thing.[26] And how does this differ from what we have called the ideal? In no respect whatever. The word Hegel uses for ‘wholeness’ is ‘reasonableness’, and if we are content to understand it (and not to abuse it) his assertion that was vernünftig ist, das ist wirklich; und was wirklich ist, das ist vernünftig, is not so wide of the mark.[27] Thought out to the end, as we have tried to do, the ideal not only grows out of the real, not only is contained in the real, but is the real.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“England in August 1914 was more of a state than she was during the great industrial strikes of 1911–1912.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“For there is not so complete and perfect a part that we know of nature, which does not owe the being it has, and the excellence of it, to its neighbours.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“The process of experiencing is well described by Goethe when he says that our life is made up of our connections with the world about us, and that we must each spin our own web and sit at the centre to catch what we can.[21] The web itself is made up of past experiences, and each new connection with the world about us, in so far as it is fully known and understood, is an addition to that web, and so an added means of experiencing.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“We remember the Spartan ambassador who, being asked in whose name he had come, replied: ‘In the name of the State, if I succeed; if I fail, in my own.’ [See Plutarch, ‘Lycurgus’, Lives, tr. J. Langhorne and W. Langhorne (London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, nd [1898]), pp. 40–1:”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“cannot associate with one another without creating a moral relationship.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“Image the whole, then execute the parts— Fancy the fabric Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz Ere mortar dab brick!”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“Browning: ‘Justinian’s Pandects only make precise / What simply sparkled in men’s eyes before’.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“in modern philosophy, the first glimpse of the true view of the conception of ‘might is right’ as applying to government is to be found in the political writings of Spinoza. Briefly it is this. Government, as such, has a limited sphere of activity. This limitation is self-limitation; and the proper province of government comprehends all that it is able to accomplish. Government may not attempt that which it is unable to achieve; that which it is able to achieve is its true and proper sphere of action. Ask and answer the question, What can government do? and we have solved the problem of what it ought to do, that is, we have defined its limits and discovered its particular nature. Its might is its right.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“Property was thus appall’d / That the self was not the same / Single nature’s double name / Neither two nor one was call’d.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“An ideal society, properly so-called, can be none other than an actual, present, society taken at its truest and best.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“to think nothing about the opinion of his society (if he be in any sense a member) is to be unconsciously influenced by it.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“For history and for science facts are self-evident and are the subject-matter of these studies, but for philosophy they are the most puzzling things imaginable, and when they are really discovered its part is played.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“When Plutarch says that a city might sooner subsist without a geographical site than without belief in the gods, his words would not have appeared strange to his countrymen at any time.’]”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“to see a thing completely is to set it in relation with the universe.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)

“To define a thing is to see it clearly, to see it as distinct from other things and at the same time to see its exact relationship with other things: for a thing is its relations and activities.”
― Michael Oakeshott, Early Political Writings 1925-30: A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to ... Oakeshott Selected Writings Book 5)