Michael Joseph Oakeshott

In political activity, then, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea; there is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

Education is ... the invitation to disentangle oneself, for a time, from the urgencies of the here and now and to listen…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

It is certain that most who concentrate upon achievement miss life.

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

A recorded past is no more than a bygone present composed of the footprints made by human beings actually going somewhere but…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

To be conservative.....is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

The man of conservative temperament believes that a known good is not lightly to be surrendered for an unknown better.

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

The rule of law bakes no bread, it is unable to distribute loaves or fishes (it has none), and it cannot protect…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

The conjunction of ruling and dreaming generates tyranny.

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

This, I believe, is the appropriate image of human intercourse -- appropriate because it recognizes the qualities, the diversities, and the proper…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

Our predicament is not the difficulty of attaining happiness, but the difficult of avoiding the misery to which the pursuit of happiness…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

History is what the evidence compels us to believe.

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

Politics I take to be the activity of attending to the general arrangements of a set of people whom chance or choice…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

Economics is not an attempt to generalize human desires or human behavior; but to generalize the phenomena of price.

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

We consider ourselves to be free because no one in our society is allowed unlimited powerno leader, faction, party or 'class', no…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

Like Midas, the Rationalist is always in the unfortunate position of not being able to touch anything, without transforming it into an…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

“So far from a political ideology being the quasi-divine parent of political activity, it turns out to be its earthly stepchild. Instead…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

Political action involves mental vulgarity, not merely because it entails the occurrence and support of those who are mentally vulgar, but because…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

“When Mr. Lippmann says that the founders of our free institutions were adherents of the philosophy of natural law, and that ‘the…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

Every human being is born an heir to an inheritance to which he can succeed only in a process of learning.

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

It is difficult to thinkof any circumstances where learning may be said to be impossible.

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

For most people, political activity is a secondary activity - that is to say, they have something else to do beside attending…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

To try to do something which is inherently impossible is always a corrupting enterprise.

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

The politics of our society are a conversation in which past, present and future each has a voice; and though one or…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott