Do I grow cleverer with age, or does the world grow more stupid?

Where a reputation for intolerance is more feared than a reputation for vice itself, all manner of evil may be expected to flourish.

The loss of the religious understanding of the human condition—that Man is a fallen creature for whom virtue is necessary but never fully attainable—is a loss, not a gain, in true sophistication. The secular substitute—the belief in the perfection of life on earth by the endless extension of a choice of pleasures—is not merely callow by comparison but much less realistic in its understanding of human nature.

A curious reversal in the locus of moral concern has taken place: people feel responsible for everything except for what they do.

The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong.

The bravest and most noble are not those who take up arms, but those who are decent despite everything; who improve what it is in their power to improve, but do not imagine themselves to be saviours. In their humble struggle is true heroism.

I've heard a hundred different variations of instances of unadulterated female victimhood, yet the silence of the feminists is deafening. Where two pieties--feminism and multi-culturalism--come into conflict, the only way of preserving both is an indecent silence.