"It was once said that democracy is the regime that stands or falls by virtue: a democracy is a regime in which all or most adults are men of virtue, and since virtue seems to require wisdom, a regime in which all or most adults are virtuous and wise, or the society in which all or most adults have developed their reason to a high degree, or the rational society. Democracy, in a word, is meant to be an aristocracy which has broadened into a universal aristocracy. … Liberal education is the ladder by which we try to ascend from mass democracy to democracy as originally meant."
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Leo Strauss, “What is liberal education,” Liberalism, Ancient and Modern (1968), pp. 4-5
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Liberal_arts
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Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss (September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973) was a German-born American philosopher who specialized in the study of classical political philosophy.
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