The Joy of Curmudgeonry

When radicalism enters men’s heads, the fear of change is not so much lost as overcome by the fear of seeming insufficiently zealous for it.

“There are people who believe everything is sensible that is done with a serious face.” [“Es gibt Leute, die glauben, alles wäre vernünftig,...

According to race-theorists Robin DiAngelo and David Allen, “a discourse on whiteness attempts to show not just how whiteness oppresses peop...

That nature does not conform to the sensibilities of mankind does not offend the sensibilities of most men, simply because it has not occurr...

An idea can develop to so great a degree of sophistication that its adherents may even come to conclude thereby what was obvious without it....

If the Scots are not out to goad the Sassenachs into political discontent, they are inadvertently working to that effect, particularly in th...

“Ministers who are prepared to take the brutal approach to penal policy contribute to the general brutalisation of society”, says Roy Hatter...

The trouble with the friends of humanity is that they will not feel guilty even if everyone is made thoroughly miserable in accordance with ...

The composer Gyorgy Ligeti has died; and it is only fitting that his passing has become the occasion for a mercifully short cacophony of pra...

One is often told that frowning requires the use of more muscles than smiling, and that, for the sake of reduced effort, one ought to smile ...

It is sometimes adduced in favour of an idea that it has had a profound effect on thought, as though this fact alone were enough to establis...

It so often happens that a well-crafted argument is no match for a well-established sentiment, such that in controversy, a resistance is pu...

The joy of an unregimented life is incalculable, and cannot therefore find support from a state that wishes everything to be regimented and ...

When the expert seeks to dissociate himself from the layman, he is often tempted into making the sort of claims from which every layman ough...

Little can be made of a man who habitually lies, cheats, inveigles, and corrupts, unless he has the support and encouragement of others, in ...

Sometimes it seems that public debate in this land is worthy of attention only because it is the arena in which charlatans and demagogues mi...