John Derbyshire

Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face…

— John Derbyshire

Conservatism is pessimistic, with a negative tendency - which we mostly resist - towards despair. Liberals are optimists, with a negative tendency,…

— John Derbyshire

Nonmathematical people sometimes ask me, “You know math, huh? Tell me something I’ve always wondered, What is infinity divided by infinity?” I…

— John Derbyshire

I tell you, with complex numbers you can do anything.

— John Derbyshire

“The arts and humanities are not mere entertainment, to be turned to for relaxation after a busy day spent solving differential equations;…

— John Derbyshire

Biophobia is as much a part of a politician's basic equipment as a sharp suit.

— John Derbyshire

In matters editorial, I am a believer in totalitarian despotism. Most writers are lazy, difficult, selfish, thoughtless, and unreliable.

— John Derbyshire

I never ponder counterfactuals.

— John Derbyshire

“Ninety percent of paid work is time-wasting crap. The world gets by on the other ten.”

— John Derbyshire

The job of conservatives is to keep the Republican Party driving on the right-hand side of the road. There are many ways…

— John Derbyshire

Education is a vast sea of lies, waste, corruption, crackpot theorizing, and careerist log-rolling.

— John Derbyshire

“A very civilized thing, glass—almost an index of civilization. When civilization retreats, it leaves behind broken glass.”

— John Derbyshire

“As a result of these news stories, millions of people must have become aware of "niggardly," who otherwise would never have heard…

— John Derbyshire

He [Mencken] was an autodidact, with all the misplaced confidence and all the astonishing gaps that characterize that breed. Not many of…

— John Derbyshire

“Our political system is now run by the Big People for their own interests. If they ever deign to notice the Little…

— John Derbyshire

“Mathematicians call it “the arithmetic of congruences.” You can think of it as clock arithmetic. Temporarily replace the 12 on a clock…

— John Derbyshire

I preach that odd defiant melancholy that sees the dreadful loneliness of the human soul and the pitiful disaster of human life…

— John Derbyshire

I am a homophobe, though a mild and tolerant one, and a racist, though an even more mild and tolerant one, and…

— John Derbyshire

“The ordinary modes of human thinking are magical, religious, social, and personal. We want our wishes to come true; we want the…

— John Derbyshire

The more depressed and maladjusted you are, the more likely it is that you are seeing things right, with minimal bias

— John Derbyshire

Asked if Stalin was an antisemite, Robert Conquest replied: Yes, but it hardly noticed. He was broadly and generously anti-human.

— John Derbyshire

What does the Right have to show for eight years of a Republican presidency? I supported George W. Bush in 2000 because…

— John Derbyshire

Steve Sailer gives us the real Barack Obama, who turns out to be very, very different - and much more interesting -…

— John Derbyshire

Razib Khan Hired And Fired By The New York Times, Both On The Same Day!

— John Derbyshire

Ultimately, however, as the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter pointed out, a powerful bureaucratic class is in the same relation to commerce as…

— John Derbyshire