Brandon Hoeft

“Everyone is simply riding the wave chance has put them on. Some people know how to surf; some people drown.”
― Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club : A Story of Ideas in America

“We permit free expression because we need the resources of the whole group to get us the ideas we need.”
― Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America

“To my mind, conservatism is gratitude. Conservatives tend to begin from gratitude for what is good and what works in our society and then strive to build on it, while liberals tend to begin from outrage at what is bad and broken and seek to uproot it.

You need both, because some of what is good about our world is irreplaceable and has to be guarded, while some of what is bad is unacceptable and has to be changed.”
― Yuval Levin

“[According to Peirce] ‘The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real.’ … nominalism denies the social altogether … ‘the community is to be considered as an end in itself’… knowledge cannot depend on the inferences of single individuals … Logic is rooted in the social principle.”
― Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club : A Story of Ideas in America