Enlightenment Era Quotes & Sayings

In our era, just as in every transitional age, God seems dead, but it is really our Enlightenment culture that has died. — Robert Inchausti

Men towering high above such political pygmies, men of refinement, of culture, of ability, are jeered into silence as mollycoddles. It is absurd to claim that ours is the era of individualism. Ours is merely a more poignant repetition of the phenomenon of all history: every effort for progress, for enlightenment, for science, for religious, political, and economic liberty, emanates from the minority, and not from the mass. Today, as ever, the few are misunderstood, hounded, imprisoned, tortured, and killed. — Emma Goldman

Under Small's influence Jefferson came to share Immanuel Kant's 1784 definition of the spirit of the era: "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity," Kant wrote.21 "Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. — Jon Meacham

Ever since the Enlightenment era in the 17th and 18th Centuries - which, among other things, gave birth to the U.S. Constitution and the de facto motto E Pluribus Unum (out of the many, one) - interfaith tolerance has been sown into the fabric of Western society. The rules of one religion are not made into law for all citizens because of a simple social agreement. For you to believe what you want, you must allow me to do the same, even if we disagree. — Gudjon Bergmann

Also during this era, writing was considered superior to reading in society. Readers during this time were considered passive citizens, simply because they did not produce a product. Michel de Certeau argued that the elites of the Age of Enlightenment were responsible for this general belief. Michel de Certeau believed that reading required venturing into an author's land, but taking away what the reader wanted specifically. Writing was viewed as a superior art to reading during this period, due to the hierarchical constraints the era initiated. — Leo Tolstoy