Popular Philosophy

“Formal philosophies undergo evaporation of their technical solid contents; in a thinner and more viable form they find their way into the minds of those who know nothing of their original forms. When these diffuse and, so to say, airy emanations recrystalize in the popular mind they form a hard deposit of opinion that alters slowly and with great difficulty.”

– John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty

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Theocracy

“Theocracy is the worst of all possible governments. All political power is at best a necessary evil: but it is least evil when its sanctions are most modest and commonplace, when it claims no more than to be useful or convenient and sets itself strictly limited objectives. Anything transcendental or spiritual, or even anything very strongly ethical, in its pretentions is dangerous and encourages it to meddle with our private lives.”

— C. S. Lewis, Lilies That Fester