Theodore Dalrymple: Trending quotes (page 2)

“Loose language suggests loose thought.”

Theodore Dalrymple

Victim impact statements represent the sentimentalisation - the Diana-ification - of the criminal justice system, argues Theodore Dalrymple http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001298.php (December 11, 2006).
The Social Affairs Unit (2006 - 2008)

“Political abstractions can disguise or change the meaning of the most elementary realities.”

Theodore Dalrymple

Gillray’s Ungloomy Morality http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_1_oh_to_be.html (Winter 2002).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Reality , Change

“Orwell's 1984 refers more directly to contemporary events than does Huxley's book: the narrative takes place in the near rather than the distant future and obviously sets its sights on Stalinism. When I traveled in the communist world before the fall of the Berlin Wall, I found that everyone I met who had read the book (clandestinely, of course) expressed immeasurable admiration for it and marveled that a man who had never set foot inside a communist country could not only describe the physical environment so well—the universal smell of cabbage, the grayness of the dilapidated buildings—but also its mental and moral atmosphere. It was almost as if the communist regimes had taken 1984 as a blueprint rather than as a warning.”

Theodore Dalrymple

The Dystopian Imagination http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_4_oh_to_be.html (Autumn 2001).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Books , World , Travel , Universe

“Unilateral tolerance in a world of intolerance is like unilateral disarmament in a world of armed camps: it regards hope as a better basis for policy than reality.”

Theodore Dalrymple

Why Theo Van Gogh Was Murdered http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon_11_15_04td.html (November 15, 2004).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

World , Hope , Reality

“Frivolity without gaiety and earnestness without seriousness—a most unattractive combination.”

Theodore Dalrymple

It’s This Bad http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_2_oh_to_be.html(Spring 2006).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

“Where tax is solidarity, the national sport is tax evasion.”

Theodore Dalrymple

"Tax is solidarity" - Theodore Dalrymple diagnoses France's malaise: Their intellectuals' belief that tax is solidarity and justice is fairness - but the national sport is tax evasion http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001407.php (February 28, 2007).
The Social Affairs Unit (2006 - 2008)

Sport

“Having been issued the false prospectus of happiness through unlimited sex, modern man concludes, when he is not happy with his life, that his sex has not been unlimited enough. If welfare does not eliminate squalor, we need more welfare; if sex does not bring happiness, we need more sex.”

Theodore Dalrymple

All Sex, All the Time.
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Life , Sex , Falseness , Happiness

“It seems that when an impending catastrophe will affect them personally, in their very flesh and blood, intellectuals start to think more clearly about the legal and institutional prerequisites of a free society.”

Theodore Dalrymple

Ideas That Kill http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_diarist.html (Winter 2000).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Thinking , Personality

“Nationalism is fraught with dangers, of course, but so is the blind refusal to recognize that attachment to one’s own culture, traditions, and history is a creative, normal, and healthy part of human experience.”

Theodore Dalrymple

How PC Boosts Le Pen http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon_4_25_02td.html (April 25, 2002).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

History , Parting

“If we can sympathise only with the utterly blameless, then we can sympathise with no one, for all of us have contributed to our own misfortunes - it is a consequence of the human condition that we should. But it does nobody any favours to disguise from him the origins of his misfortunes, and pretend that they are all external to him in circumstances in which they are not.”

Theodore Dalrymple

Addiction and the Ipswich Murders: Theodore Dalrymple argues that the five murdered women were driven on to the streets not by addiction itself, but by myths about addiction http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001306.php (December 14, 2006).
The Social Affairs Unit (2006 - 2008)

“Resentment is one of the few emotions that never lets you down, but it’s useless. In fact, it’s worse than useless, it’s harmful, and we all suffer from it at some time in our lives.”

Theodore Dalrymple

CBC Ideas Interview (podcast) (September 25, 2006)

Suffering , Time

“Truth is not the first casualty of war alone: it is the first casualty of populism.”

Theodore Dalrymple

It is the inescapable duty of every decent citizen to express no interest in or enthusiasm for football and the World Cup http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/000966.php (June 7, 2006).
The Social Affairs Unit (2006 - 2008)

War , Truth

“People who are given opiates after operations — sometimes for days — do not become addicts in the sense that I’m talking about. Moreover, it’s been shown that heroin addicts have to make considerable efforts — in other words to be determined — to become addicts, and addicted; and on average it takes them about a year or so. In other words, heroin does not hook them, they hook heroin. And this, I think should suggest, is a typical example of the way that when we think about social problems, or the way many of us think about social problems, we ascribe agency not to agents but to inanimate objects and substances, and forces.”

Theodore Dalrymple

C-SPAN: Romancing Opiates https://www.c-span.org/video/?191384-1/romancing-opiates (May 30, 2006)

People , Way , Problem , Thinking

“For intellectuals, everyone’s mind is closed but their own.”

Theodore Dalrymple

Les intellos Speak http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon_11_10_04td.html (November 10, 2004).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

“14:06> …Of course I made it quite clear to the women that I thought that that the way that they had been abused was terrible and completely unjustifiable. However, I thought that it was very important that they should understand their own complicity in it; so that, for example, they understood that the way they chose men, and their refusal to see signs (which they were capable of seeing) resulted in their misery… <14:40> To give you a concrete example, I would say to them, ‘This man of yours, who’s very nasty to you, and drags you across the floor, and puts your head through the window, and sometimes even hangs you out of the window by your ankles: How long do you think it would take me to realise he was no good, as he came through the door? Would it take me a second, or half a second, or an eighth of a second, or would I not notice that there was anything wrong with him at all?’ And they’d say, ‘Oh, an eighth of a second, you’d know immediately.’ And I would say to them, ‘Well, if you know that I would know immediately, then you knew immediately as well.’ It’s a logical consequence, really. And they would accept that. ‘And yet, you chose to associate with him, knowing full well that he was no good; and I tell you this, because it’s very necessary you should understand your own part in the predicament you now find yourself in, because if you don’t understand it, or don’t think about it, you’re just going to repeat it.’ which is of course, a very, very common pattern.”

Theodore Dalrymple

Daniels http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Daniels_(psychiatrist) on helping victims of abuse understand how they can help to break the cycle.
CBC Ideas Interview (podcast) (September 25, 2006)

Women , Men , Way , Understanding

“The real and most pressing question raised by any social problem is: “How do I appear concerned and compassionate to all my friends, colleagues, and peers?””

Theodore Dalrymple

The Starving Criminal http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_4_oh_to_be.html (Autumn 2002).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Question , Problem , Appearance

“When the cold war ended, I thought, as no doubt did many others, that the age of ideology was over. Again like many others, I underestimated man’s need for transcendence, which, in the absence of religion or high culture, he is most likely to find in a political or social cause.”

Theodore Dalrymple

City Journal (1998 - 2008)

War , Age , Religion

“In a democratic age, only the behavior of the authorities is subject to public criticism; that of the people themselves, never.”

Theodore Dalrymple

Who Killed Childhood?
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

People , Age , Behavior

“Henceforth, there is to be no testing oneself against the best, with the possibility, even the likelihood, of failure: instead, one is perpetually to immerse oneself in the tepid bath of self-esteem, mutual congratulation, and benevolence toward all.”

Theodore Dalrymple

The Rage of Virginia Woolf http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_3_oh_to_be.html (Summer 2002).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Failure

“Equality can only be measured by outcome: and this means the imposition of racial quotas. The job of the Senior Executive is therefore to be a senior racist.”

Theodore Dalrymple

Theodore Dalrymple finds a cure for the German malady of low blood pressure: read The Guardian's job advertisements.
The Social Affairs Unit (2006 - 2008)