Charles Taylor Quotes

#1. ...liberalism can't and shouldn't claim complete cultural neutrality. Liberalism is also a fighting creed.

Charles Taylor

#2. [E]ach of our voices has something unique to say. Not only should I not mold my life to the demands of external conformity; I can't even find the model by which to live outside myself. I can only find it within.

Charles Taylor

#3. We become full human agents, capable of understanding ourselves, and hence of defining our identity, through our acquisition of rich human languages of expression.

Charles Taylor

#4. Little countries do not have this luxury of defending themselves. We have to do it before the fact, not after the fact

Charles Taylor

#5. But an important point is that, once again as with "scientific" proofs of atheism, it is not the cast-iron intellectual reasoning which convinces, but the relief of revolt.

Charles Taylor

#6. ...dominant groups tend to entrench their hegemony by inculcating an image of inferiority in the subjugated.

Charles Taylor

#7. What should have died along with communism is the belief that modern societies can be run on a single principle, whether that of planning under the general will or that of free-market allocations.

Charles Taylor

#8. There is a widespread sense of loss here, if not always of God, then at least of meaning.

Charles Taylor

#9. There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else's life. But this notion gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life; I miss what being human is for me.

Charles Taylor

#10. [M]y discovering my own identity doesn't mean that I work it out in isolation, but that I negotiate it through dialogue, partly overt, partly internal, with others.

Charles Taylor

#11. The only meaningful life is that which is deepened by carrying through these commitments, living through the dead periods in order to lay the foundations for the creative ones.

Charles Taylor