A Quote by Richard Hofstadter
Intellectualism, though by no means confined to doubters, is often the sole piety of the skeptic.
Related Quotes
Piety is not an end, but a means: a means of attaining the highest culture by the purest tranquility of soul. Hence it may be observed that those who set up piety as an end and object are mostly hypocrites.
Sadly enough, there is a kind of an anti-intellectualism among many Christians: spirituality is falsely pitted against intellectual comprehension as though they stood in a dichotomy. Such anti-intellectualism cuts away at the very heart of the Christian message. Of course, there is a false intellectualism which does destroy the work of the Holy Spirit. But it does not arise when men wrestle honestly with honest questions and then see that the Bible has the answers. This does not oppose true spirituality.
At root, evangelical anti-intellectualism is both a scandal and a sin. It is a scandal in the sense of being an offense and a stumbling block that needlessly hinders serious people from considering the Christian faith and coming to Christ. It is a sin because it is a refusal, contrary to Jesus' two great commandments, to love the Lord our God with our minds. Anti-intellectualism is quite simply a sin. Evangelicals must address it as such, beyond all excuses, evasions, or rationalizations of false piety.
I would never find myself or unlikely to find myself in a room where I have a skeptic who brought me in. But I very often am in a situation somebody who's there who didn't invite me was a skeptic. That happens all the time.
Cynicism and skepticism are the crudest form of quasi-intellectualism... Let the cynic become cynical of his cynicism and the skeptic skeptical of his skepticism and join the battle.
[This approach] displays the characteristic philosophical lust to vanquish the skeptic by arguing him out of his skepticism, without appeal to moral and political considerations or to the facts of everyday life. [...] But more often than not, if you give the skeptic everything he wants, then he will be successful in repulsing your attacks and terrorizing your position.
I'm going to prove the haters and doubters wrong. I like when the doubters try to say that I'm (not still) elite or that I'm too old. I'll use that.
Everybody who works under any system feels confined. It is a natural reaction. You are confined to a certain extent. You are confined if you work in a bank, if you paint. You are confined, in a sense, to your art - the enclosure of your mind. Everybody should break out.
Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.
There is a need for expertise, for real expertise. I'm not doing much to help that cause, but I think we can find the healthy balance between intellectualism and anti-intellectualism. Jocks and nerds may come together, I believe it.
We can't be confined to one way of thinking, and that terrifies our leaders. It means we can't be controlled. And it means that no matter what they do, we will always cause trouble for them.
Like many physical diseases, anti-Semitism is highly infectious, and can become endemic in certain localities and societies. Though a disease of the mind, it is by no means confined to weak, feeble, or commonplace intellects; as history sadly records, its carriers have included men and women of otherwise powerful and subtle thoughts.
I think Britain is a little better at bringing intellectuals into discourse than America, where I'm from. Though I would say, perhaps, that the U.K. prefers its intellectualism to be entertaining.
Piety's hard enough to take among the poor who have to practice it. A rich man's piety stinks. It's insufferable.
Receive Communion often, very often...there you have the sole remedy, if you want to be cured. Jesus has not put this attraction in your heart for nothing.
If you cultivate piety as an end and not a means, you will become a hypocrite.
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