John Derbyshire: Quotes about people

“Most people are not intellectuals — a fact that intellectuals have terrible trouble coming to terms with.”

John Derbyshire

Source: The Wood Has Been Made Into a Boat http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/216568/wood-has-been-made-boat/john-derbyshire, National Review January 23, 2006.

People

“Nonmathematical people sometimes ask me, “You know math, huh? Tell me something I’ve always wondered, What is infinity divided by infinity?” I can only reply, “The words you just uttered do not make sense. That was not a mathematical sentence. You spoke of ‘infinity’ as if it were a number. It’s not. You may as well ask, 'What is truth divided by beauty?’ I have no clue. I only know how to divide numbers. ‘Infinity,’ ‘truth,’ ‘beauty’—those are not numbers.””

John Derbyshire book Prime Obsession

Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics (2003)

People , Truth , Beauty , Mathematics

“Historians of the future will amuse themselves by coming up with theories to explain why European civilization, at the height of its powers, rich with unparalleled achievements in science, music, art, literature, mathematics, and technology, gave up its lands and its treasures to people for whom those achievements were mere hated tokens of oppression or the impious and superfluous productions of infidels.”

John Derbyshire

Multiculturalism: When Will the Sleeper Wake? http://takimag.com/article/multiculturalism_when_will_the_sleeper_wake_john_derbyshire/print#ixzz3xOopVxdb, Taki's Magazine, March 29, 2012.

Hate , People , Art , Music

“These post-Soviet rulers of Russia are certainly very wicked people. They have sucked their country’s precious natural resources out of the ground, sold them on world markets, and pocketed the proceeds, leaving Ivan and Katya to trudge through freezing mud for a lousy wage or starvation-level pension. Are they, though, more wicked than the rulers of the Anglosphere, who have swamped their own people with millions of hesperophobic welfare-dependent foreigners from regions of low mean IQ and high mean criminality — mullahs, muggers, and moochers — just for the satisfaction of humiliating their own domestic enemies? Will they, in the long run, have done more to destroy their nation, than our rulers have done to destroy ours? History will tell.”

John Derbyshire

Down, But Still Russian http://takimag.com/article/down_but_still_russian/print#axzz3xNaU2RAk, Taki's Magazine, December 8, 2011.

People , World , History , Nature

“This is life. People stumble and grope blindly hither and thither, wondering if they did the right thing, occasionally knocking something over and hoping no-one noticed, striving for illusory goals, addled with guilt and insecurity.”

John Derbyshire

Source: Derb Quotes https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/derb-quotes-john-derbyshire/, National Review, November 20, 2003.

People , Hope , Life

“Marriage is one of those things that works best when people don’t think about it too much.”

John Derbyshire

Source: Derb Quotes https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/derb-quotes-john-derbyshire/, National Review, November 20, 2003.

Thinking , Marriage , People