151 Quotes by Charles Murray

Some people pursue happiness in ways that tend to be accompanied by large incomes, others in ways that tend to be accompanied by lower incomes. In a free society, these choices are made voluntarily, with psychic rewards balanced against monetary rewards. Income inequality is accordingly large. So what?

The sciences form a hierarchy. “Physics rests on mathematics, chemistry on physics, biology on chemistry, and, in principle, the social sciences on biology,” wrote evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers.

Here, I put it as an assertion: If the criteria for the choice are rootedness in human experience, seriousness of purpose, and intellectual depth, choosing the classic aesthetic tradition over postmodernism is not a close call.

Since they are in fact academically gifted, it is fine to tell them that. Trying to hide their academic ability from them would be futile anyway. But they must also be told explicitly, forcefully, and repeatedly that their intellectual talent is a gift that they have done nothing to deserve. They are not superior human beings, but very, very lucky ones. They should feel humbled by their good luck.

After a couple of hours of intense work, I look at the paragraph I’m struggling with and know that it will be easier to finish it tomorrow. Other writers who talk about their routines usually make the same point – three or four hours a day is about the maximum that can be expected.

Why did the burst of activity fade so rapidly? The specific explanations diverge in their particulars, but they agree on the central point that, as H. Floris Cohen, put it, “the root cause of its decline is to be found in the Faith, and in the ability of its orthodox upholders to stifle once-flowering science.”16 To Islamic scholar G. E. von Grunebaum, Islam was never able to accept that scientific research is a means of glorifying God.

But the people who have recently come to dominance and those who will come to dominance in the new century are increasingly aware – or can be made aware – that freedom still works in their own lives and that they effectively exempt themselves from most of the laws that take freedom away from other people.

Under this hypothesis, genetically-grounded personality differences widen in the most gender-egalitarian societies for the simplest of reasons: Both sexes become freer to do what comes naturally.

Suppose that this reading of history is correct. Today’s creative elites are not just overwhelmingly secular but often hostile to the idea that transcendental goods have any meaning. Such is the reason to fear that well-made entertainments are as much as we can hope for. Great art requires a source of inspiration that the people who produce those entertainments are not tapping.