All forms of human happiness contain within themselves the seeds of their own decomposition. Theodore Dalrymple More Quotes by Theodore Dalrymple More Quotes From Theodore Dalrymple How many people does each of us know who claim to seek happiness but freely choose paths inevitably leading to misery? Theodore Dalrymple pathdoepeople To regret religion is to regret Western civilization. Theodore Dalrymple western-civilizationregretcivilization The need always to lie and always to avoid the truth stripped everyone of what Custine called 'the two greatest gifts of God-the soul and the speech which communicates it.' People became hypocritical, cunning, mistrustful, cynical, silent, cruel, and indifferent to the fate of others as a result of the destruction of their own souls. Theodore Dalrymple fatetwolying 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 Theodore Dalrymple becomingdesiremen Childhood in large parts of modern Britain, at any rate, has been replaced by premature adulthood, or rather adolescence. Children grow up very fast but not very far. That is why it is possible for 14 year olds now to establish friendships with 26 year olds - because they know by the age of 14 all they are ever going to know. Theodore Dalrymple growing-upchildrenyears 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 could survive honest thought about human nature. Theodore Dalrymple beautifulcharactermen The idea that freedom is merely the ability to act upon one's whims is surely very thin and hardly begins to capture the complexities of human existence; a man whose appetite is his law strikes us not as liberated but enslaved. Theodore Dalrymple lawmenideas Life is a biography, not a series of disconnected moments, more or less pleasurable but increasingly tedious and unsatisfying unless one imposes a purposive pattern upon them. Theodore Dalrymple patternsbiographieslife-is Orders can be benign or malign, but the habit of obeying them can become ingrained. Theodore Dalrymple benignhabitorder Obesity is the result of a loss of self-control. Indeed, loss of self-control might be said to be the defining social (or anti-social) characteristic of our age: public drunkenness, excessive gambling, promiscuity and common-or-garden rudeness are all examples of our collective loss of self-control. Theodore Dalrymple gamblinggardenloss I do not think it possible for anyone to get by in life without prejudice. However, the attempt to do so leads many people to suppose that, in order to decide any moral question, they have to find an indubitable first principle from which they can deduce an answer. Theodore Dalrymple thinkmorallifepeople Parents are perhaps the most common object of resentment, the people who are most frequently blamed for all our failings and failures alike. Theodore Dalrymple parentswhoresentmentpeople It is clear to me that people often want incompatible things. They want danger and excitement on the one hand, and safety and security on the other, and often simultaneously. Contradictory desires mean that life can never be wholly satisfying or without frustration. Theodore Dalrymple mefrustrationlifepeople Many young people now end a discussion with the supposedly definitive and unanswerable statement that such is their opinion, and their opinion is just as valid as anyone else's. The fact is that our opinion on an infinitely large number of questions is not worth having, because everyone is infinitely ignorant. Theodore Dalrymple worthendopinionpeople We all resort to the ad hominem from time to time: in human affairs, it is difficult to avoid it, and probably not desirable. After all, our opponents are human. The proper use of an ad hominem argument, however, still requires evidence to back it up. Theodore Dalrymple backargumentdifficulttime
