The more depressed and maladjusted you are, the more likely it is that you are seeing things right, with minimal bias
John DerbyshireThe job of conservatives is to keep the Republican Party driving on the right-hand side of the road. There are many ways we do this. We argue, we publish, we lobby, we campaign for conservative candidates. Another thing we do is, when the GOP goes off the rails on really key issues - size of government, the National Question, Wilsonian adventures - we stay home on election day.
John DerbyshireNonmathematical people sometimes ask me, โYou know math, huh? Tell me something Iโve always wondered, What is infinity divided by infinity?โ I can only reply, โThe words you just uttered do not make sense. That was not a mathematical sentence. You spoke of โinfinityโ as if it were a number. Itโs not. You may as well ask, 'What is truth divided by beauty?โ I have no clue. I only know how to divide numbers. โInfinity,โ โtruth,โ โbeautyโโthose are not numbers.
John DerbyshireHe [Mencken] was an autodidact, with all the misplaced confidence and all the astonishing gaps that characterize that breed. Not many of us would venture to write a book about democracy without ever having read de Tocqueville, nor embark on a translation of Nietzsche with only a sketchy knowledge of German.
John Derbyshire