92 Quotes by Theodore Dalrymple

Europe has changed without knowing how to conserve: that is its tragedy.

If the history of the 20th Century proved anything, it proved that however bad things were, human ingenuity could usually find a way to make them worse.

Pauperism is above all a psychological, not an economic, condition.

Where a reputation for intolerance is more feared than a reputation for vice itself, all manner of evil may be expected to flourish.

It is not surprising that emotion untutored by thought results in nearly contentless blather, in which – ironically enough – genuine emotion cannot be adequately expressed.

The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong.

Life is a biography, not a series of disconnected moments, more or less pleasurable but increasingly tedious and unsatisfying unless one imposes a purposive pattern upon them.

And secretly I fell prey to the one of the besetting sins of western intellectuals, which normally I abhor: I began to experience envy of suffering, that profoundly dishonest emotion which derives from the foolish notion that only the oppressed can achieve righteousness or – more importantly – write anything profound.

The bravest and most noble are not those who take up arms, but those who are decent despite everything; who improve what it is in their power to improve, but do not imagine themselves to be saviours. In their humble struggle is true heroism.