Herbert Fingarette Quotes

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What disquieted Confucius was "leaving virtue untended and learning unperfected, hearing about what is right but not managing either to turn toward it or to reform what is evil." (7:3) The disciple of Confucius was surely all too aware that his task was one calling not for amazement and miracle but for constant "cutting, filing, carving, polishing" (1:15) in order to become a fully and truly human being, a worthy participant in society.

Herbert Fingarette

The moral and spiritual achievements of man do not depend on tricks or luck or on esoteric spells or on any purely external agency. One's spiritual condition depends on the "stuff" one has to begin with, on the amount and quality of study and good hard work one puts into "shaping" it. Spiritual nobility calls for persistence and effort. "First the difficult..." (6:20) "His burden is heavy and his course is long." (8:7)

Herbert Fingarette

Herbert Fingarette

Herbert Fingarette

Born: January 20, 1921

Died: November 2, 2018 (aged 97)

Bio: Herbert Fingarette was an American philosopher and emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles under the direction of Donald Piatt.

Known for:

Confucius--the secular as sacred (1972)
Heavy Drinking (1988)
Self-deception (1969)
The meaning of criminal insanity (1972)
Death: Philosophical Soundings (1996)

Herbert Fingarette on Wikipedia

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