Jonah Goldberg: Quotes about people

Jonah Goldberg is American political writer and pundit. Explore interesting quotes on people.
Jonah Goldberg: 178   quotes 0   likes

“I am just mystified by these people telling me I would think Obama was doing a great job if his skin contained less melanin.”

Jonah Goldberg
People , Thinking

“Some people work just to make the money to support the other things in their life that provide meaning, be it a family or a cause or a hobby that may seem silly to you or me but is central to their individual pursuit of happiness. Some people don’t work for money at all. Priests, stay-at-home parents, and volunteers in a thousand different institutions aren’t pursuing wealth; they are pursuing meaning through love and love through meaning.”

Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, A Free People Must Be Virtuous (2018)

Love , Life , Money , People

“[W]ork is good. Work is virtuous and inculcates virtue. Work gives people a sense of meaning and of being needed. Obviously, not everyone feels such satisfaction in the job they have now, but that dissatisfaction is precisely the motivation people need to find the job that might provide it. That motivation inspires virtue, too.”

Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, A Free People Must Be Virtuous (2018)

People , Feeling , Motivation , Sense

“DOGS, KIDDIE PORN & STAR TREK: (Hey, that’s a good book title). Unfortunately, I was out with Cosmo when the conversation got interesting around here. First of all, while I think it is wrong to judge dogs by human political categories they most certainly aren’t liberals. Dogs may try to run your life, but they do not much care about running the lives of people they’ve never met. And still, they are willing to judge others -- and admit it. They are morally pragmatic, loyal and willing to share with family while outraged or flummoxed by the idea of taxation for the benefit of people or dogs they don’t know. They firmly believe in sexual harassment as a modus vivendi. They believe nature is a tool. They are not vegetarians and reject animal rights. They chuff at egalitarianism. In short, I think they are Monarchists; they believe in something very close to a Great Chain of Being with humans and dogs at the top (and, even at the top humans and dogs have different ranks).”

Jonah Goldberg

April 2002 http://web.archive.org/web/20001011/www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/2002_04_14_corner-archive.asp
2000s, 2002

Life , People , Books , Family

“If you're too stupid to understand that a philosophy that favors a federally structured republic, with numerous restraints on the scope and power of government to interfere with individual rights or the free market, is a lot different from an ethnic-nationalist, atheistic, and socialist program of genocide and international aggression, you should use this rule of thumb: If someone isn't advocating the murder of millions of people in gas chambers and a global Reich for the White Man you shouldn't assume he's a Nazi and you should know it's pretty damn evil to call him one.”

Jonah Goldberg

January 5, 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20010105/www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldbergprint010501.html
2000s, 2001

People , Stupidity , Understanding , Evil

“One of the great things about liberalism is that it allows for more paths for just that pursuit. In tribal society, there was little to no division of labor beyond what was rooted in age and sex. In feudal monarchies and modern totalitarianisms alike, there is division of labor, but it is imposed on people by rulers: “You will be a soldier.” “You will be a fry cook.” “You were born to be a slave or a serf.” In a free society, you have choice. It’s not perfect: You can’t choose to be a Marine if you do not meet the requirements, but you are free to try.”

Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, A Free People Must Be Virtuous (2018)

People , Age , Sex , Perfection

“Boredom is a powerful incentive to come up with bad ideas, especially for intellectuals. "Capitalism," says Irving Kristol, "is the least romantic conception of a public order that the human mind has ever conceived." The reason it's so unromantic is that it doesn't tell people what to do and that can be very frustrating for intellectuals who want to tell people what to do. Indeed, court intellectuals have always been more influential where the people are less free, because when an intellectual persuades a dictator or a socialist prime minister (a small distinction to be sure), their advice gets translated into reality. When an intellectual says, "It would be a better society if all beer was free" a free-market politician would, or at least should, say "Maybe, but what can I do about it?"”

Jonah Goldberg

2000s, 2001, Free-Market Boring…Losing Consciousness (2001)

People , Idea , Beer , Reality

“There was an NPR story this morning, about the indigenous peoples of Australia, which might make a good column. Apparently they want to preserve their culture, language, and religion because they're slowly disappearing, which is certainly understandable. But, for some reason, they also want more stuff — better education, housing, etc. — from the Australian government. Isn't it odd that it never occurs to such groups that maybe, just maybe, the reason their cultures are evaporating is that they get too much of that stuff already? Indeed, I'm at a loss as to how mastering algebra and biology will make aboriginal kids more likely to believe — oh, I dunno — that hallucinogenic excretions from a frog have spiritual value. And I'm at a loss as to how better clinics and hospitals will do anything but make the shamans and medicine men look more useless. And now that I think about it, that's the point I was trying to get at a few paragraphs ago, when I was talking about the symbiotic relationship between freedom and the hurly-burly of life. Cultures grow on the vine of tradition. These traditions are based on habits necessary for survival, and day-to-day problem solving. Wealth, technology, and medicine have the power to shatter tradition because they solve problems.”

Jonah Goldberg

( August 15, 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20010105/www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg081501.shtml)
2000s, 2001

Life , Men , People , Education

“[W]e live in a popular-front moment, where no one on “our side” is worth criticizing too much, if at all, and everyone on “their side” is evil. This has as much to do with ratings and page views as it does with ideology. Moths chase light, but the incentive for politicians, producers, and pundits is to follow the heat. I’m still torn over how people such as Mark Zuckerberg should deal with slanderous carnival barkers like Alex Jones. But I’m convinced a lot of people are to blame for the problem reaching Zuckerberg’s desk in the first place.”

Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, Are We to Blame for the Alex Jones Problem? (2018)

People , Problem , Light , Evil

“[I]nstitutions and communities need to be able to exploit their comparative advantages. It’s not just that the Marine Corps demands more from its members than the Peace Corps; it’s that the Marines demand different things. For some people, being a Marine would be a kind of living Hell; for others it is a reason to live. That’s what the individual pursuit of happiness means.”

Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, A Free People Must Be Virtuous (2018)

People , Peace , Communication , Hell

“I'll never tire of the people so vexed by me they have to insist I am irrelevant. I may be irrelevant, but I clearly matter to you.”

Jonah Goldberg

Twitter post https://twitter.com/JonahNRO/status/1038118908992081920 (7 September 2018)
2010s, 2018

People

“We can debate how much socialism there was in Hitler’s National Socialism. It is remarkable, however, that many of the people insisting that Norway or Sweden is obviously socialist even though they both are more free-market than Hitlerite Germany are aghast at the suggestion that the National Socialists were…socialists.”

Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, Socialism is So Hot Right Now (2018)

People

“The modern doctrines of diversity and multiculturalism are a kind of homogenizing totalitarianism. Its acolytes want every institution to be filled with people who look different but think alike. What our society needs is not more “diversity” of this sort but more variety. Different communities and institutions need to be able live differently, because it is only with this kind of variety that a diverse people can find places where they all feel at home and where they can all find a kind of meaning that suits them as individuals.”

Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, A Free People Must Be Virtuous (2018)

People , Feeling , Home , Communication

“A rising economic tide is bad for people who live off of the poverty of others.”

Jonah Goldberg

February 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20010105/www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/jonah021501.asp
2000s, 2001

People

“At the end of the day, happiness is derived from love — love for others and others’ love for you. When I say “love” I do not mean simply romantic love, though that is obviously one of the greatest wellsprings of true happiness. I mean the love one feels from friends, and the love for places and things that brings people together for shared purpose.”

Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, A Free People Must Be Virtuous (2018)

Love , People , Feeling , Happiness

“An idiot is no smarter if a billion people agree with him and a genius is no dumber if a billion people don't.”

Jonah Goldberg

2000s, 2002, Jersey Dems vs. Democracy (2002)

People

“But, the people who criticized these people were … what? I am so disgusted with people who think free speech is defined as being able to say what you think without being criticized.”

Jonah Goldberg

In reference to Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks comment at the 49th Grammy Awards that "People are using their freedom of speech tonight [by giving us] all these awards. I'm very humbled."
2000s, 2007, Dissident Chicks (2007)

People , Thinking

“Great civilizations create great cathedrals, and the cathedrals of this generation should be in outer space. Cathedrals inspire rich and poor people alike to believe great things are possible. The Mars Polar Lander cost the average American the price of half a cheeseburger. A human lander would cost the average American more — perhaps even ten cheeseburgers! So be it. That is no great sacrifice.”

Jonah Goldberg

2000s, 2000, A Truly Great America (2000)

People

“Capitalism—at least as Sanders & Co. understand it—is not fulfilling. It doesn’t provide a sense of meaning and solidarity. It rewards—in their minds—the few and punishes the many. There must be a better, more humane way, in which we’re all in it together and sacrifice is shared. The word “social” comes from the Latin socii, meaning allies. People want to feel that they are allied with one another, fighting toward a common goal together for the good of the tribe, marching to the same drumbeats. This is innate in us. Our tribal brains crave social solidarity every bit as much as our palates crave foods that are sweet, fatty, or salty. We can train ourselves to resist the cravings or channel them toward productive ends. But very few of us can eliminate the craving itself.”

Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, Socialism is So Hot Right Now (2018)

People , Food , Way , Feeling

“Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common goal. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the "problem" and therefore defined as the enemy. I will argue that contemporary American liberalism embodies all of these aspects of fascism… You can see why the Marxist left would resist the idea that Hitler was a revolutionary. Because if he was, then either Hitler was a force for good, or revolutions can be bad.”

Jonah Goldberg

Source: 2000s, 2008, Liberal Fascism (2008), p. 63

Life , People , Health , Religion