What is the point of restraint and circumspection, if such stream-of-consciousness vulgarity can win not merely wealth and fame but complete social a… - Theodore Dalrymple

It is easy to be lenient at other people's expense, and call it generosity of mind.

I’m not actually against, for example, people going into rehabilitation, provided it is understood that this is not really a medical procedure. Often what happens is that people who are addicted to a substance — alcohol or opiates — have comprehensively messed up their lives, and since life is biography and not just a series of unconnected moments, it may be that they require some assistance in getting their lives together. But I don’t regard that as really a medical procedure.

It is only by having desire thwarted, and thereby learning to control it—in other words, by becoming civilized—that men become fully human.