The Joy of Curmudgeonry

“There are fits of forgetfulness or deceit which terrify: you open your ears, you rub your eyes, not knowing whether you are awake or asleep...

“A better St George’s day message would have been to emphasise that George was either Turkish or Palestinian and that, like Christianity its...

“The materialist who is convinced that all phenomena arise from electrons and quanta and the like controlled by mathematical formulae, must ...

“The news that two children aged 10 and 11 have been charged with the attempted murder of two other boys is deeply depressing, . . . but I d...

“Police intercepted a blue armoured car containing 10 anarchists — known as the Space Hijackers — who had come to the protests to make their...

“It is a most extraordinary fact that all modern talk about self-determination is applied to everything except the self.” G.K. Chesterton, “...

“To the south-east — three thousand leagues — The Yüan and Hsiang form into a mighty lake. Above the lake are deep mountain valleys, And men...

“It seems to me, upon the whole matter, that to save or redeem a nation . . . from perdition, nothing less is necessary than some great, som...

Iconoclasm is for the philistine a sacred idol never to be broken.

“When we speak of a cube with trimmed corners—a figure which is not a cube—we do so from a natural instinct of economy, which prefers to add...

Any ethos — say, of Confucianism or Stoicism — that teaches the harmony of the mind with the order of nature cannot now but stand as a threa...

There is no war where no-one sees anything of value for which to fight. The peace-mongers would see the world stripped of values, and all me...

Not even the dregs of humanity are so contemptible as those who look down upon them with condescending indulgence wherewith to stir them up....

“The first and highest rule of all deed and speech, the more necessary to be followed the higher and more numerous our posts, is: an ounce o...

Great Britain has a grave problem. Its highest political offices are not held by black men. How can any self-respecting Briton ever feel pro...

“On two occasions I have been asked, — ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ In o...