Fewtril no.246

The popular success of liberalism is owed perhaps to its securing the right of every man to be indifferent and shamelessly vulgar — such of whom it has had the good sense of flattery to call tolerant and free.

Fewtril no.245

Any scheme for the improvement of society that does not reckon upon the occurrence of stupidity is a scheme that singularly fails to take itself into account.

Fewtril no.244

Even incredulity becomes a creed.

Fewtril no.243

The man who dismisses intuition as a pre-scientific folk-myth is just the sort of stout, deliberative, no-nonsense chap to have by one’s side in times of sitting down and drinking tea.

Fewtril no.242

The conceit of some journalists is so rich, and their conceptions so poor, that when they advocate a meritocracy, they imagine a state of affairs in which their meager talents would still be employed.

Fewtril no.241

It is a lazy if not imperious habit of mind to declare irrational those who do not work towards one’s own ends.

Fewtril no.240

Many call it the exercise of the intellect; but in ear-shot and sight of all their high-flown talk, of their verbosity that goes nowhere, of their ceaseless rearrangement of things, of their profound alienation and insecurity, even of their self-loathing that becomes at times a shameless self-regarding that is yet never so penetrating as to reveal to them how much they regard themselves — looking at it all, one might find for it another name: madness.

Fewtril no.239

To have had all the advantages of a wealthy upbringing but to have repudiated them in order to appear authentic — well, for the man who has proceeded in this way, success in some regard was bound to be easy: he was authentically contemptible from the beginning.

Fewtril no.238

Though it is true that I am an anti-democrat, I would never go so far as not to have criminals strung up by their ankles in parks and town-squares such that local democracy would be deprived of the opportunity to express itself.

Fewtril no.237

Whilst we acknowledge that wisdom is eternal, and bears repetition, foolishness is showing unmistakable signs of persistence.

Fewtril no.236

It is pleasing in adolescence to be cynical, declaring, say, that love is simply a chemical imbalance. With adulthood comes a greater sobriety and an appreciation of the complexity of life, such that one is given to suspect that adolescent cynicism is partly the result of a chemical imbalance.

Fewtril no.235

With all the hopeful remedies, liberal policies, humanistic prescriptions, and so on, that I hear mentioned everyday, I ask myself whether they are really directed at the same species I see everyday.

Fewtril no.234

“In sensitive times like these, we need helpful statements” — or lies, as they were called in less sensitive times.

Fewtril no.233

One could write a book which might send every man who read it mad. It would have to be so persuasive in tone and argument as to strip him of the defences of his character and reveal to him without consolation the terrible possibilities of his predicament: the ephemerality and finitude of his being, without autonomy, overwhelmed by the vastness of the world. It could be a best-seller, but only if it were bound in a bright cover with pictures on it.

Fewtril no.232

Democracy vulgarises to so great an extent that it leaves the vast majority of people impressed with its achievements.

Fewtril no.231

History is no keen judge: the silliest affairs can become the profoundest events, and the weakest ideas the strongest currents.

Fewtril no.230

It is a cold head that counts upon opportunities to persuade itself and others that it is attached to a warm heart.

Fewtril no.229

Those who beheaded Louis XVI of France for the sake of a democratic republic probably did not consider that so clear a lesson and so direct a solution to the abuse of power could not thereafter be made so easily. To say the least: beheading the people and their representatives is a more difficult — not to say, more bloody — proposition.

Fewtril no.228

I’ll never fit in; I have trouble faking outrage.

Fewtril no.227

There is a terrible lot of straw men walking around — so why not attack them?