FastSaying

Secular thinkers have no more been able to work free of the centuries-old Judeo-Christian culture than Christian theologians were able to work free of their inheritance of classical and pagan thought. The process... has not been the deletion and replacement of religious ideas but rather the assimilation and reinterpretation of religious ideas.

M. H. Abrams

Related Quotes

The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spite of themselves.
— M. H. Abrams
18th CenturyBibleCentury
We are human, and nothing is more interesting to us than humanity.
— M. H. Abrams
HumanHumanityInteresting
When I was a graduate student, the leading spirits at Harvard were interested in the history of ideas.
— M. H. Abrams
GraduateGraduate StudentHarvard
The Romantics were whipping boys of the New Criticism, but they appealed to me anyway. I was recalcitrant. It was clear to me that they had thought innovatively.
— M. H. Abrams
AnywayAppealedBoy
We believed that to understand literature, you had to understand its place in history and culture.
— M. H. Abrams
BelievedCultureHad