William Ernest Hocking
William Ernest Hocking
William Ernest Hockingwas an American idealist philosopher at Harvard University. He continued the work of his philosophical teacher Josiah Royce in revising idealism to integrate and fit into empiricism, naturalism and pragmatism. He said that metaphysics has to make inductions from experience: "that which does not work is not true." His major field of study was the philosophy of religion, but his 22 books included discussions of philosophy and human rights, world politics, freedom of the press, the philosophical psychology...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhilosopher
CountryUnited States of America
William Ernest Hocking quotes about
age-and-aging forward keeps man work
I find that a man is as old as his work. If his work keeps him from moving forward, he will look forward with the work.
death men animal
Man is the only animal that contemplates death, and also the only animal that shows any sign of doubt of its finality.
departure facts formal
This merely formal conceiving of the facts of one's own wretchedness is at the same time a departure from them--placing them in the object. It is not idle, therefore, to observe reflexively that in that very Thought, one has separated himself from them, and is no longer that which empirically he still sees himself to be.
old-habits knowing desire
A person who wills to have a good will, already has a good will--in its rudiments. There is solid satisfaction in knowing that the mere desire to get out of an old habit is a material advance upon the condition of submergence in that habit. The longest step toward cleanliness is made when one gains--nothing but dissatisfaction with dirt.
party needs may
Every social need, such as the need for friendship, must be a party to its own satisfaction: I cannot passively find my friend as a ready-made friend; a ready-made human being he may be, but his friendship for me I must help to create by my own active resolve.
historical understanding may
However rich we may become in knowledge of the deeper causes of historical results, we forgo all understanding of history if we forget this inner continuity,--i.e., the conscious intentions of the participants in history-making and their consciously known successes.
religious essence ideas
We are driven to confess that we actually care more for religion than we do for religious theories and ideas: and in merely making that distinction between religion and its doctrine-elements, have we not already relegated the latter to an external and subordinate position? Have we not asserted that "religion itself" has some other essence or constitution than mere idea or thought?
character views effectiveness
What our view of the effectiveness of religion in history does at once make evident as to its nature is--first, its necessary distinction; second, its necessary supremacy. These characters though external have been so essential to its fruitfulness, as to justify the statement that without them religion is not religion. A merged religion and a negligible or subordinate religion are no religion.
men doe hazards
No religion is a true religion that does not make men tingle to their finger tips with a sense of infinite hazard.
hurt men justice-of-god
Only the man who has enough good in him to feel the justice of the penalty can be punished; the others can only be hurt.
inspirational teaching swings
We cannot swing up a rope that is attached only to our own belt.
men liberty libertarian
Where men cannot freely convey their thoughts to one another, no other liberty is secure.
men found goods
And indeed, no man has found his religion until he has found that for which he must sell his goods and his life.
light views law
For those who have only to obey, law is what the sovereign commands. For the sovereign, in the throes of deciding what he ought to command, this view of law is singularly empty of light and leading. In the dispersed sovereignty of modern states, and especially in times of rapid social change, law must look to the future as well as to history and precedent, and to what is possible and right as well as to what is actual.