Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist) quotes - page 2

Mediocrity triumphs because it presents itself as democratic and because it is dull, and so for many does not seem worth struggling against. (Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist))
There is no such thing, wrote Oscar Wilde, as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. Presumably, then, Mein Kampf would have been all right had it been better written. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
Modernity is the most transient of qualities. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
There is nothing an official hates more than a person who makes up his own mind. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
The refusal of free inquiry derives from an awareness of the fragility of the basis of religious faith; and since certainty is psychologically preferable to truth, the former often being willfully mistaken for the latter, anything that threatens certainty is anathematized with fury. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
To make up for its lack of a moral compass, the British public is prey to sudden gusts of kitschy sentimentality followed by vehement outrage, encouraged by the cheap and cynical sensationalism of its press. Spasms of self-righteousness are its substitute for the moral life. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
The British are fast turning themselves into a nation of slaves, where even the slave-masters are not free. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
It is better to be opposed by an enemy than to be adrift in meaninglessness, for the simulacrum of an enemy lends purpose to actions whose nihilism would otherwise be self-evident. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
Optimism is the parent of despair, while pessimism allows the mind to accustom itself to the inevitable disappointments of human existence by degrees, just as some drugs induce a state of tolerance. Pessimists, moreover, have the better sense of humour, for they have a livelier apprehension of pretension and absurdity. In a meritocracy, furthermore, those who fail must either indulge in elaborate mental contortions to disguise reality from themselves or sink into a deep melancholy. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
The victory over cruelty is never final, but, like the maintenance of freedom, requires eternal vigilance. (Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist))
It is, of course, a common prejudice that censorship is bad for art and therefore always unjustified: though, if this were so, mankind would have little in the way of an artistic heritage and we should now be living in an artistic golden age. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
In Britain, journalists often view comparisons with our society going back two, three, or seven centuries as more relevant than comparisons going back two, three, or seven decades. Drunkenness centuries ago is more illuminating than comparative sobriety 30 years ago. The distant past, selectively mined for evidence that justifies our current conduct, becomes more important than living memory. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
Experience rarely teaches its lessons directly but instead requires interpretation through the filter of preconceived theories, prejudices, and desires. Where these are invincible, facts are weak things. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
If a lack of money had prevented people from improving their lot, then mankind would still be living in the caves: unless you believe that investment capital first arrived from outer space. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
The withdrawal symptoms from opiates are not severe and never dangerous, though of course they do exist. Insofar as they are genuinely feared, there has been a campaign of exaggeration about them for nearly 200 years. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
Incidentally, many thousands of American servicemen addicted themselves to heroin in Vietnam, but two years after their repatriation their rate of addiction was no greater than that of draftees who were to go to Vietnam, but never did go because the war had ended. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
In the welfare state, experience teaches nothing. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
For the sake of democracy, vigorous, civilized debate must replace the law of silence that political correctness has imposed. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
What youth considers liberation, maturity considers tasteless excess. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
What is the point of restraint and circumspection, if such stream-of-consciousness vulgarity can win not merely wealth and fame but complete social acceptance? (Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist))
With carefully nourished resentment, a man can go through his life blaming someone or something else for his failures. This enables him to be a failure and to feel morally superior to the world at the same time. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
Humor, fearlessness, seriousness, and honesty: the qualities that are hated with an equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies that are contending for tenure in the humanities departments of our universities. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
Nothing is easier - or more gratifying - than to apologise for what your ancestors, enemies or political opponents have done or omitted to do. We get the kudos for having apologised, they get the blame for what we apologise for. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
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. View quote
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)