The idea that man is a tabula rasa, or Mao's sheet of blank paper upon which the most beautiful characters can be written, is an old one with disastrous implications. I do not think though that the cults you mention… — Theodore Dalrymple Copy Share Image
“(This is not to claim that horrific events may not have severe psychological consequences for those who experience them, only to say that the apparatus of supposed recuperation and aftercare has profound effects upon the incidence of psychological consequences, often… — Theodore Dalrymple Copy Share Image
Life is a biography, not a series of disconnected moments, more or less pleasurable but increasingly tedious and unsatisfying unless one imposes a purposive… — Theodore Dalrymple Copy Share Image
Many young people now end a discussion with the supposedly definitive and unanswerable statement that such is their opinion, and their opinion is just… — Theodore Dalrymple Copy Share Image
“even received a few requests that I send medicine, since none was available in the local pharmacies—an admission, unthinkable a few years ago, that… — Theodore Dalrymple Copy Share Image
There is nothing an addict likes more, or that serves as better pretext for continuing his present way of life, than to place the… — Theodore Dalrymple Copy Share Image
“In The Gulag Archipelago, for example, Alexander Solzhenitsyn remarks that Shakespeare’s evildoers, Macbeth notably among them, stop short at a mere dozen corpses because… — Theodore Dalrymple Copy Share Image
Orders can be benign or malign, but the habit of obeying them can become ingrained. — Theodore Dalrymple Copy Share Image
“A taste for kitsch among the well-to-do is a sign of spiritual impoverishment; but among the poor, it represents a striving for beauty, an… — Theodore Dalrymple Copy Share Image
“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda… — Theodore Dalrymple Copy Share Image
“People with no experience of life except under communist regimes would tell me that they knew—though they were unsure how—that their life was not… — Theodore Dalrymple Copy Share Image
When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to… — Theodore Dalrymple Copy Share Image
