R G Collingwood Quotes

Rational truth - and all truth is rational - is essentially that which can justify itself under criticism and in discussion. ~ R.G. Collingwood

The failure of art is, as we have said, not a complete failure. Substantial truth is revealed to us, we are not cheated of that; but it is revealed only in the equivocal form of beauty, submerged, so to speak, in the flood of aesthetic emotion. It is only because truth is revealed in it that the emotion is aesthetic; but emotional truth, truth in the guise of beauty, is not truth at all in the formal sense Art asserts nothing; and truth as such is matter of assertion. To be itself, it demands logical form. Art fails us because it does not assert. It is pregnant with a message that it cannot deliver. To ~ R.G. Collingwood

...philosophy does not, like exact or empirical science, bring us to know things of which we were simply ignorant, but brings us to know in a different way things which we already knew in some way; and indeed it follows from our own hypothesis; for if the species of a philosophical genus overlap, the distinction between the known and the unknown, which in a non-philosophical subject-matter involves a difference be-tween two mutually exclusive classes of truths, in a philosophical subject-matter im- plies that we may both know and not know the same thing; a paradox which disappears in the light of the notion of a scale of forms of knowledge, where coming to know means coming to know in a different and better way. ~ R.G. Collingwood

Thus natural science is not a way of knowing the real world; its value lies not in its truth but in its utility; by scientific thought we do not know nature, we dismember it in order to master it. ~ R.G. Collingwood

R. G. Collingwood said that studying the past teaches us three things" what it is to be a man - or a woman; what it is to be the kind of woman you are; and what it is to be the kind of woman you are and nobody else.... One thing I learned is that heroes don't always wear capes... And I learned that big things can start small. Look what throwing some tea into Boston Harbor led to. ~ Kelly Jamieson

Every kind of language is... specialized form of bodily gesture, and in this sense it may be said that the dance is the mother of all languages... an original language of total bodily gesture.

This "original" language of total bodily gesture is thus the one and only real language, which everybody who is in any way expressing himself is using all the time. What we call speech and the other kinds of language are only parts of it which have undergone specialized development. ~ R.G. Collingwood

The idea that this end of philosophy - at least, of political philosophy and (I claim) moral philosophy - has close relations with history overlaps with a more ambitious view held by a consistently underestimated Oxford philosopher, R. G. Collingwood. The trouble with Collingwood's kind of commitment is that it requires one to know some history. My two associates in the view I am sketching are Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor. They are both Roman Catholics, though of different sorts. I used to find this a disquieting fact but no longer do so. All three of us, I could say, accept the significant role of Christianity in understanding modern moral consciousness, and adopt respectively the three possible views about how to move in relation to that: backward in it, forward in it, and out of it. In any case, we all assume some historical commitments, they on a more ambitious scale than I, and perhaps there is a rather nervous competition for who writes the most irresponsible history. ~ Bernard Williams

Regardless of the situation, don't let the bastards win ... and have no regrets ... for it will be a good day!
-Richard Wakinyan (Martian Fleet Commander) ~ R.G. Risch

The artist must prophesy not in the sense that he foretells things to come, but in the sense that he tells his audience, at the risk of their displeasure, the secrets of their own hearts ~ Robin G. Collingwood

I shovel [money] out, and God shovels it back ... but God has a bigger shovel! ~ R. G. LeTourneau

The sociability of artists is a paradoxical and precarious thing, and ceases the instant they begin their actual artistic work. ~ Robin G. Collingwood

Frank's phone beep-beeped and vibrated before he'd put it back in his pocket:
Love to! xx
Man. Two kisses already. The woman was a nymphomaniac. ~ R.G. Manse

Every new generation must rewrite history in its own way. ~ Robin G. Collingwood

The universe is not a stagnant place where technology stands still and only the few govern its destiny. Rather, it is a multidimensional dynamic entity that interacts with all things, even the very smallest. And what part we each place in it and the effect we have on it is a matter of our own choice. ~ R.G. Risch

Kids reminded her of cats. You always had the sneaking suspicion that they knew something you didn't and they believed it made them superior. ~ R.G. Alexander

Yet it is also a tonic and an antidote to dullness to be with the Serbs. They possess the irresponsible gaiety that we traditionally connect with the Irish, with whom they have often been compared. Other less convenient sides of the Irish character are also typical in the Serbs, such as a cheerful contempt for punctuality in daily life and a ready willingness, arising clearly from politeness and good nature, to make promises that are not always fulfilled. But perhaps the most pronounced of these similarities is to be found in the songs of Serbia and Ireland. With both peoples the historic songs about the past are songs of sorrow, or noble struggles against overwhelming odds, of failure redeemed by unconquerable resolve. There is nothing strange in this combination of laughing gaiety and profound melancholy. It is often only those who are truly capable of the one emotion who also have the faculty for the other. ~ R.G.D. Laffan

THE COLONIES OF AMERICA C L O U D . M E D I T E C H . D E S C O N . E V E R G R E E N A FREE STATE IS A CORPORATE STATE Abruptly ~ Marie Lu

I shovel out the money, and God shovels it back - but God has a bigger shovel. - R. G. LeTourneau ~ Randy Alcorn

The pebbles of knowledge must be bonded together by the cement of experience. ~ R. G. LeTourneau

He could write an epic poem about her ass. And all the ways he wanted to defile it. ~ R.G. Alexander

How could she get a good hate on for someone she wanted to lick? ~ R.G. Alexander

Art is community's medicine for that worst disease of the mind, the corruption of consciousness ~ Robin G. Collingwood

Rosy waited as long as she dared then sat forward and let her eye rove Franny's lounge, up and down the shelves, looking for something, not even sure she could bring herself to act if she saw it again, already convinced this was her worst ever idea ~ R.G. Manse

Love is a rare gift. It comes in many packages and forms, each one unique...each one a blessing. ~ R.G. Alexander

Allegedly, allegedly I say, the R.G.A. were extremely miffed of portrait painted of their monarch, King Tingaling XX, by Master. Portrait apparently, as it's yet t'be unveiled, depicts King Tingaling XX in rather compromisin' position with a pineapple, a wad of cash and his favourite pig, Buttercup. ~ Elias Zapple

see you two working so well together," Belmore ~ R.G. Winter

The romantic artist expects people to ask, 'What has he got to say?' The classical artist expects them to ask, 'How does he say it? ~ Robin G. Collingwood

What a man is ashamed of is always at bottom himself; and he is ashamed of himself at bottom always for being afraid. ~ Robin G. Collingwood

History is for human self-knowledge. Knowing yourself means knowing, first, what it is to be a person; secondly, knowing what it is to be the kind of person you are; and thirdly, knowing what it is to be the person you are and nobody else is. Knowing yourself means knowing what you can do; and since nobody knows what they can do until they try, the only clue to what man can do is what man has done. The value of history, then, is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is. ~ Robin G. Collingwood

..:Knowing what needs to be done is not enough. We are to get up and act upon those things and make the changes necessary in order to succeed in life:..
-R.G- ~ Rafael Garcia

The problem with Happily Ever After is that when you live far beyond the terms of most Ever After's there is just too much time for it to go wrong. ~ R.G. Dole

Franny?" Rosy held up the four little Franks. "Could I keep one of these?"
Franny looked at her hard for a moment then nodded. "'Course you can, hen," she said, "But that's not your daddy."
Rosy gaped. "It's not?"
"That's my wee darling. That's my wee Frankie before the devil twisted him into a monster." She poked her finger into another hole where Frank's face should have been. Her eyes glinted. ~ R.G. Manse

The man has stick-up-his-ass-itis. ~ R.G. Alexander

How d'you spell 'belligerent'?" said Ron, shaking his quill very hard while staring at his parchment. "It can't be B - U - M - "
"No, it isn't," said Hermione. "And 'augury' doesn't begin O - R - G either. ~ J.K. Rowling

That kind of thinking is often called wishful, but you need it for a starter. Give me a little more time, and see what I come up with. ~ R. G. G. LeTourneau

ze a n d st y le . A q u ic k lo o k sh o w s th a t th is fa b u lo u s g re e n su e d e $300 va lue Miu Miu b e lt is o nly $59 a nd this le a the r G uc c i to te for $199! Forg et ~ Anonymous

To regard such a positive mental science [psychology] as rising above the sphere of history, and establishing the permanent and unchanging laws of human nature, is therefore possible only to a person who mistakes the transient conditions of a certain historical age for the permanent conditions of human life. ~ Robin G. Collingwood