The most important thing about the gentleman was that he was an idealist. … He was bred up to a code of self-restraint which taught resistance to pra… - Richard M. Weaver

If we share to a large extent in the mutuality of spirit which makes meaning possible, we are receptive to true meanings; if we do not, we may accept wrong or perverted ones. And since there is no way of getting outside the human imagination to decide otherwise what a word should mean, we are compelled to realize that the most imaginative users of language are those who are going to have the greatest influence upon vocabulary in the long run.

In the popular arena, one can tell … that the average man … imagines that an industrious acquisition of particulars will render him a man of knowledge. With what pathetic trust does he recite his facts! He has been told that knowledge is power, and knowledge consists of a great many small things.

Fanaticism has been properly described as redoubling one’s effort after one’s aim has been forgotten, and this definition will serve as a good introduction to the fallacy of technology, which is the conclusion that because a thing can be done it must be done. The means absorb completely, and man becomes blind to the very concept of ends.