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 DalrympleThe loss of the religious understanding of the human conditionโthat Man is a fallen creature for whom virtue is necessary but never fully attainableโis a loss, not a gain, in true sophistication. The secular substituteโthe belief in the perfection of life on earth by the endless extension of a choice of pleasuresโis not merely callow by comparison but much less realistic in its understanding of human nature.
Theodore DalrympleHow many people does each of us know who claim to seek happiness but freely choose paths inevitably leading to misery?
Theodore Dalrymple