Richard M. Weaver Quotes

Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

Astonishment is the root of philosophy.

Some like to understand what they believe in. Others like to believe in what they understand.

It was through the feeling of wonder that men now and at first began to philosophize.

This sense of wonder is the mark of the philosopher. Philosophy indeed has no other origin.

This then is the age of reason.

For through wondering human beings now and in the beginning have been led to philosophizing.

Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?

To him who looks at the world rationally the world looks rationally back.

Our capacity for fulfillment can come only through faith and feelings. But our capacity for survival must come from reason and knowledge.

I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, the more I love.

No wonder is greater than any other wonder, and if once explained ceases to be a wonder.

For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize... They were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end.

An emotion is an automatic response, an automatic effect of man's value premises. An effect, not a cause. There is no necessary clash, no dichotomy between man's reason and his emotions

I think the virtue I prize above all others is curiosity.

The only sovereign I can allow to rule me is reason. The first law of reason is this: what exists exists; what is is. From this irreducible, bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. This is the foundation from which life is embraced. Reason is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a means to discovering them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality–it is our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see." -Richard

Thinking... is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas

Reason is one thing and faith is another and reason can as little be made a substitute for faith, as faith can be made a substitute for reason.

All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.

Upon this first, and in one sense this sole, rule of reason, that in order to learn you must desire to learn, and in so desiring not be satisfied with what you already incline to think, there follows one corollary which itself deserves to be inscribed upon every wall of the city of philosophy: Do not block the way of inquiry.

The modern mind has lost all capacity to wonder. It has lost all capacity to look into the mysterious, into the miraculous - because of knowledge, because it thinks it knows.

Wonder... and not any expectation of advantage from its discoveries, is the first principle which prompts mankind to the study of Philosophy, of that science which pretends to lay open the concealed connections that unite the various appearances of nature.

If faith is what you have to go on, if faith is the link between your beliefs and the world at large, your beliefs are very likely to be wrong. Beliefs can be right or wrong. If you believe you can fly, that belief is only true if indeed you can fly. Somebody who thinks he can fly, and is wrong about it, will eventually discover there's a problem with his view of the world.

There is more religion in men's science, than there is science in their religion.