Theodore Dalrymple > Quotes

“In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is...in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
― Theodore Dalrymple

“To regret religion is to regret Western civilization.”
― Theodore Dalrymple

“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.”
― Theodore Dalrymple

“There is nothing that an intellectual less likes to change than his mind, or a politician his policy.”
― Theodore Dalrymple

“When every benefit received is a right, there is no place for good manners, let alone for gratitude.”
― Theodore Dalrymple

“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.”
― Theodore Dalrymple

“Feeling good about yourself is not the same thing as doing good. Good policy is more important than good feelings.”
― Theodore Dalrymple

“I sometimes astonish my patients by telling them that it is far more important that they should be able to lose themselves than that they should be able to find themselves. For it is only in losing oneself that one does find oneself.”
― Theodore Dalrymple

“It is only by having desire thwarted, and thereby learning to control it — in other words, by becoming civilized — that men become fully human.”
― Theodore Dalrymple

“The world has a lot to thank murderers for, when you come to think of it.”
― Theodore Dalrymple, So Little Done: The Testament of a Serial Killer

“[T]he scale of a man's evil is not entirely to be measured by its practical consequences. Men commit evil within the scope available to them.”
― Theodore Dalrymple, Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses