Merold Westphal famous quotes

To assume that one's existential task is completed when the individual is brought into right relation with society, that is, when the individual has been socialized, is to absolutize society and confuse society with God.
-- Merold Westphal

#Tasks #Existentialism #Assuming

To a society that inarticulately and thoughtlessly takes itself to be divine, Hegel says, Yes, we are indeed divine, and philosophy can show how this is both possible and necessary.
-- Merold Westphal

#Philosophy #Hegel #Divine

In a revolutionary age talk of equality may well have represented a passion to provide full human dignity to those who had previously been denied it by systems of political and economic domination; but in the present age it softens the spiritual requirements that are an essential ingredient in human dignity. Thus the slogans of equality serve not so much to elevate individuals to the dignity of being human as to free them from the responsibility of rising to this vocation.
-- Merold Westphal

#Spiritual #Responsibility #Passion

It is the shared bad faith by which individuals help each other sustain the illusion that they can shirk their spiritual destiny by joining the public.
-- Merold Westphal

#Spiritual #Destiny #Joining

For the amoral herd that fears boredom above all else, everything becomes entertainment. Sex and sport, politics and the arts are transformed into entertainment. ... Nothing is immune from the demand that boredom be relieved (but without personal involvement, for mass society is a spectator society).
-- Merold Westphal

#Sports #Art #Sex

The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do; the task can be as paralysing as having to tell a joke or mimic an accent on demand.

We need innovation in education and dedication to the task before us.

We all carry within us places of exile, our crimes, our ravages. Our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to transform them in ourselves and others.

Our task is to widen our circle of compassion to include all living beings and all of nature

The fourth paradigm forces us at every point to discern between the creationally valid and the sinfully perverse and thus confronts us with a never-ending task which requires not only competence but also spiritual discernment. Yet this is precisely the task which we must assume, even at the risk of being vague on specifics. The alternative is to compromise basic themes of authentic Christianity.

Plays are always about intense relationships, whether they're intense love relationships or family relationships or existential relationships.

Man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level.

Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.

Pride works frequently under a dense mask, and will often assume the garb of humility.

Children always assume the sexual lives of their parents come to a grinding halt at their conception.