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Good scholars struggle to understand the world in an integral way (pedants bite off tiny bits and worry them to death). These visions of reality […] demand our respect, for they are an intellectual's only birthright. They are often entirely wrong and always flawed in serious ways, but they must be understood honorably and not subjected to mayhem by the excision of patches.
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"Men of the Thirty-Third Division: An Essay on Integrity", p. 136

 

Stephen Jay Gould

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The combination of these two facts — the longing in the depth of the heart for absolute good, and the power, though only latent, of directing attention and love to a reality beyond the world and of receiving good from it — constitutes a link which attaches every man without exception to that other reality.
Whoever recognizes that reality recognizes also that link. Because of it, he holds every human being without any exception as something sacred to which he is bound to show respect.
This is the only possible motive for universal respect towards all human beings. Whatever formulation of belief or disbelief a man may choose to make, if his heart inclines him to feel this respect, then he in fact also recognizes a reality other than this world's reality. Whoever in fact does not feel this respect is alien to that other reality also.

 

Simone Weil

 

I think the control I had over my work was less than adequate. There was nothing wrong with the good bits in my poems, it’s just that they were packed around with lots and lots of bad bits, and I think that the only way I’ve improved in the last several decades [. . .] is that I’ve learned to leave out the bad bits. I’m not sure you do improve beyond that.

 

Clive James

 

The respect inspired by the link between man and the reality alien to this world can make itself evident to that part of man which belongs to the reality of this world.
The reality of this world is necessity. The part of man which is in this world is the part which is in bondage to necessity and subject to the misery of need.
The one possibility of indirect expression of respect for the human being is offered by men's needs, the needs of the soul and of the body, in this world.

 

Simone Weil

 

The intellectual world is divided into two classes — dilettantes, on the one hand, and pedants, on the other.

 

Miguel de Unamuno

 

If I were to say, “I took that crucial step [breaking his engagement to Regine Olsen] because I felt bound, because I had to have my freedom, inasmuch as the lustfulness of my desire embraces a world and cannot be satisfied with one girl,” then the chorus would reply, “That makes sense! Good luck, you enlightened man!” But if I were to say, “She was the only one I have loved; if I had not been sure of that when I left her, I would never have dared to leave her,” then the answer would be, “Away to the loony bin with him!” If I were to say, “I was tired of her,” then the chorus would answer, “Now you’re talking! That is understandable!” But if I were to say, “Then I cannot understand it, for one certainly does not dare to break a relationship of duty because one is tired of it,” then they would say, “He is crazy.” If I were to say (in the words of my most recent interpretation), “I repent of it, I would like to undo it, but I cannot do it-no, I cannot do it, my pride does not permit it-no, I cannot do it”-then the verdict would be, “He is just like everyone else and like the heroes in French poetry.” But were I to declare that nothing, nothing would so satisfy my pride as to dare to undo it, that nothing, nothing would so allay the cold fire of revenge that demands amends, then the response would be: “He is delirious, do not listen to him; away to the loony bin with him.” Mundus vult decipi [The world wants to be deceived]; my relationship to the environment that I must call my world can hardly be more definitely expressed. In fact, I believe that in a wider sense it is the best that can be said about the world. Thus speculators should not cudgel their brains trying to fathom what the times demand, for it has been essentially that same since time immemorial: to be tricked and bamboozled. If one just says something silly and drinks dus with humanity en masse, then one comes to be, like Per Degn, loved and esteemed by the whole congregation. It is not any different now, and anyone who with visible signs of deep concern strikes an attitude of brooding in public over how to find out what it is the times demand has already, when all is said and done, discovered it. In this respect, anyone can serve the age, whether it is to be understood as a whole nation, the human race as a whole, all the future generations, or a little circle of contemporaries. I serve the participants by being a scoundrel. There is no doubt that I satisfy their demand. In fact, I myself also benefit from it and in a certain sense find this outside appraisal really desirable. To be a model of virtue, a bright normative human being, is, for one thing, very embarrassing-and also very dubious. But, on the other hand, I am not being persecuted, either. This, too, is desirable, lest I should draw wrong conclusions and think well of myself because I am persecuted in the world. With regard to people, I have never hesitated to follow my guardian spirit in yielding to a certain elemental modesty about the good and a somewhat gloomy distrust of myself-in other words, to deceive in such a way that I perhaps am always a little better than I seem. I have never been able to understand it in any other way than that every human being is essentially assigned himself and that outside of this either there is an authorization such as an apostle’s, the dialectical nature of which I cannot grasp, although out of respect for what is handed down to me as sacred I refrain from drawing any conclusions from my nonunderstanding-or there is maundering. It is quite true that a person who cannot shave himself can set up shop as a barber and serve others according to their needs, but in the world of the spirit this is meaningless.

 

Soren Aabye Kierkegaard