Quotes from Theodore Dalrymple

It has often been said that anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools; it would be more accurate to say that socialism is the anti-Semitism of intellectuals...

The choice for Gillray, as for all persons of good sense, was never between perfection and hell on earth, but always between better and worse.

One might extend La Rochefoucauld's famous maxim that neither the sun nor death can be stared at for long, by saying that no member of the modern liberal intelligentsia can stare at a social problem for very long.

The provision of charity as of right destroyed the motive for human solidarity in the face of hardship, and undermined both ties of personal affection and the sense of duty toward close relations. Intended as an expression of social responsibility, it liberated selfishness.

modern 'scientific' sociology, whose achievement has been to obscure by means of statistical legerdemain the importance of human consciousness

Everyone who experiences this weight of governmental interference and regulation knows how little any of it has to do with its ostensible justification. A great deal of it is an employment scheme of otherwise unemployable scriveners.

One man's poverty is another man's employment opportunity.

Do I grow cleverer with age, or does the world grow more stupid?

Considering the importance of resentment in our lives, and the damage it does, it receives scant attention from psychiatrists and psychologists. Resentment is a great rationalizer: it presents us with selected versions of our own past, so that we do not recognize our own mistakes and avoid the necessity to make painful choices.

Equality of Ugliness: If we can't all live in a beautiful place we must all live in an ugly place.