Mediocrity triumphs because it presents itself as democratic and because it is dull, and so for many does not seem worth struggling against. - Theodore Dalrymple

Whereas fortitude was once regarded as a virtue, it has come to be regarded as a kind of reprehensible and deliberate obtuseness, to be utterly condemned as treason to the self (there is no fury like a non-judgmentalist scorned).

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.

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.