Behavior Quote by 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 starting-place nor…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott

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

— 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 not knowing…

— 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 to the…

— 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 itself against…

— 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 relationships of…

— 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 exposes us.

— 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 have brought…

— Michael Joseph Oakeshott