The Joy of Curmudgeonry

There is no clearer sign of a widespread blight in culture than that language, a vital organ of intellectual and cultural life, is degraded....

The sight of people competing to be victims seems to be odd and against the order of things until one considers that they are in fact compet...

The defenders of a dying creed often hasten its death by the manner in which they choose to defend it—by a solicitous desire not to offend i...

“Be more stupid and you will feel better” — such was Professor Immermann’s prescription for the ailments of his most brilliant patient, Frie...

One becomes so accustomed to the evasiveness and dishonesty of politicians that one immediately thinks something is amiss when one of them g...

No explanation can be found for why a fundament of the world exists; for by definition it is something which has no worldly reason for its b...

“They are quite anxious. They have enjoyed the prosperity, the happiness, under the kings. This is an irreversible process our king has init...

We can hardly imagine what fools we look to posterity, and in what present and prepossessing absurdities we engage, until we catch a glimpse...

The stupid never make clever mistakes; such are the preserve of clever men, who complicate matters by also making stupid ones.

When one speaks of social decline or decadence, one is referring to the prevalence of people who are corrupt or decadent; and thus, it is no...

Nothing noble is ever done solely for the sake of its usefulness, but if nobility has a use, then it is in that bloody-mindedness that withs...

Everyone claims to live by the principle that we should not harm the innocent, which is perhaps why we have so many theories that find us al...

One may easily get another to admit his shortcomings provided he hasn’t already bragged of them.

The more we study great men, the more we learn of their great inconsistency in character and behaviour, and of the often inscrutability of t...

One will occasionally have inexpressibly profound feelings about something – one feels one knows the hidden truth about it, but cannot quite...

Often when we claim that the people of a more genteel and honourable age were not so different from us, it is noticeable that we emphasise a...