151 Quotes by Charles Murray

The human impulse behind the isolation of class is as basic as impulses get: People like to be around other people who understand them and to whom they can talk.

People need self-respect, but self-respect must be earned -- it cannot be self-respect if it's not earned -- and the only way to earn anything is to achieve it in the face of the possibility of failing.

Regardless of whether people have free will, human flourishing requires that they live in an environment in which they are treated as if they did.

The percentage of people qualifying for federal disability benefits because they are unable to work rose from 0.7 percent of the size of the labor force in 1960 to 5.3% in 2010.

paying taxes is a cheap price for a quiet conscience—much cheaper than actually having to get involved in the lives of their fellow citizens.

It is said that there comes a point in every mathematics student's education when he hears himself saying to the teacher, "I think I understand"-- and that's the point at which he has hit a wall. Making sure that all gifted students hit their own personal walls is crucial for developing the empathy with the rest of the world. When they see their less lucky peers struggle academically, they need to be able to say "I know how it feels,"-- and be telling the truth.

pp. 6-7:I want America to return to the ideal of treating people as individuals, so I have to write a book that treats Americans as groups. But there’s no way around it. Those of us who want to defend the American creed have been unwilling to say openly that races have significant group differences. Since we have been unwilling to say that, we have been defenseless against claims that racism is to blame for unequal outcomes. What else could it be? We have been afraid to answer candidly.

People need self-respect, that self respect must be earned – it cannot be self-respect if it's not earned – and the only way to earn anything is to achieve it in the face of the possibility of failing.

Instead of feeling sorry for the exceptionally able student who has no one to talk to, we need to worry about what happens when the exceptionally able students hang out only with one another.