Mark > Mark's Quotes

“Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist.”
― George Carlin

“It is as impossible for man to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle.”
― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”
― Jim Henson

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“From Michel Foucault these thinkers absorbed their idea of society not as an infinitely complex system of trust and traditions that have evolved over time, but always in the unforgiving light cast when everything is viewed solely through the prism of ‘power’. Viewing all human interactions in this light distorts, rather than clarifies, presenting a dishonest interpretation of our lives. Of course power exists as a force in the world, but so do charity, forgiveness and love. If you were to ask most people what matters in their lives very few would say ‘power’. Not because they haven’t absorbed their Foucault, but because it is perverse to see everything in life through such a monomaniacal lens.”
― Douglas Murray, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity

“Prose this bad can only occur when the author is trying to hide something. A theoretical physicist like Sheldon Lee Glashow cannot afford to write in the unreadable prose of the social sciences. He needs to communicate exceptionally complex truths in as simple and clear a language as possible.”
― Douglas Murray, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity

“The least attractive-sounding of this trinity is the concept of ‘intersectionality’. This is the invitation to spend the rest of our lives attempting to work out each and every identity and vulnerability claim in ourselves and others and then organize along whichever system of justice emerges from the perpetually moving hierarchy which we uncover. It is a system that is not just unworkable but dementing, making demands that are impossible towards ends that are unachievable. But today intersectionality has broken out from the social science departments of the liberal arts colleges from which it originated. It is now taken seriously by a generation of young people and – as we shall see – has become embedded via employment law (specifically through a ‘commitment to diversity’) in all the major corporations and governments. New”
― Douglas Murray, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity

“Just as Marxism was meant to free the labourer and share the wealth around, so in this new version of an old claim, the power of the patriarchal white males must be taken away and shared around more fairly with the relevant minority groups.”
― Douglas Murray, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity

“As it is in politics, so it is in private and public companies. Fast-tracked diversity may promote the people who were nearest to their destination already. And very often these are the most privileged people of any group – including their own.”
― Douglas Murray, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity

“Any parent may notice the differences between their sons and daughters, but the culture tells them that there are none or that those that are there are purely ‘performative’ issues.”
― Douglas Murray, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity