151 Quotes by Charles Murray

Responsibility for the consequences of actions is not the price of freedom, but one of its rewards.

Considerable social science research has found that constant praise of children can backfire, because it so often consists of telling children how smart they are, not of praising children for the things they actually do. As a result, many children become protective of their image of being smart and are reluctant to take chances that might actually damage that image.

The relationship of marriage to happiness is simple as can be. There’s hardly anything better than a good marriage for promoting happiness and nothing worse than a bad one.

Page 85: Results for the military stand apart from all civilian work settings and occupations. One relevant factor for explaining the military’s success is presumably that each branch has its own minimum score on the Armed Forces Qualification Test required of all recruits. The Army requires a score at the 31st percentile or higher, equivalent to an IQ of 92.6 or more, which is roughly the top half of the African and Latin distributions.

They don't know the distinction between taking care of a child and raising a child.

the most lovable of exceptional American qualities (is) our tradition of insisting that we are part of the middle class, even if we aren’t, and of interacting with our fellow citizens as if we were all middle class.

It used to be that parents didn't have to be home. If a neighbor so I child misbehaving, it was considered appropriate for the neighbor to intervene. The parents would be grateful when they found out, and they would take the word of the neighbor if the child protested his innocence.Unmarried and divorced parents tend not to behave that way. Instead, they tend to try to be the good guy to their children.

The average Harvard freshman in 1952 would have placed in the bottom 10 percent of the incoming class by 1960.

Data can bear on policy issues, but many of our opinions about policy are grounded in premises about the nature of human life and human society that are beyond the reach of data.