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The only difference between fiction and religion is that people don't kill themselves over fiction.Ahmed Mostafa
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Owing to the shape of a bell curve, the education system is geared to the mean. Unfortunately, that kind of education is virtually calculated to bore and alienate gifted minds. But instead of making exceptions where it would do the most good, the educational bureaucracy often prefers not to be bothered. In my case, for example, much of the schooling to which I was subjected was probably worse than nothing. It consisted not of real education, but of repetition and oppressive socialization (entirely superfluous given the dose of oppression I was getting away from school). Had I been left alone, preferably with access to a good library and a minimal amount of high-quality instruction, I would at least have been free to learn without useless distractions and gratuitous indoctrination. But alas, no such luck. Let’s try to break the problem down a bit. The education system […] is committed to a warm and fuzzy but scientifically counterfactual form of egalitarianism which attributes all intellectual differences to environmental factors rather than biology, implying that the so-called 'gifted' are just pampered brats who, unless their parents can afford private schooling, should atone for their undeserved good fortune by staying behind and enriching the classroom environments of less privileged students. This approach may appear admirable, but its effects on our educational and intellectual standards, and all that depends on them, have already proven to be overwhelmingly negative. This clearly betrays an ulterior motive, suggesting that it has more to do with social engineering than education. There is an obvious difference between saying that poor students have all of the human dignity and basic rights of better students, and saying that there are no inherent educationally and socially relevant differences among students. The first statement makes sense, while the second does not. The gifted population accounts for a very large part of the world’s intellectual resources. As such, they can obviously be put to better use than smoothing the ruffled feathers of average or below-average students and their parents by decorating classroom environments which prevent the gifted from learning at their natural pace. The higher we go on the scale of intellectual brilliance — and we’re not necessarily talking just about IQ — the less support is offered by the education system, yet the more likely are conceptual syntheses and grand intellectual achievements of the kind seldom produced by any group of markedly less intelligent people. In some cases, the education system is discouraging or blocking such achievements, and thus cheating humanity of their benefits.Christopher Langan
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We live in a highly complex, technological world — and it's not entirely obvious what's right and what's wrong in any given situation, unless you can parse the situation, deconstruct it. People just don't have the insight to be able to do that very effectively.Christopher Langan
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For those of you who may be homeschooled: high school is that four-year asylum where they put teenagers because we have no idea what else to do with them.Anthony M. Esolen
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As long as high schools strive to list the number of Ivy League schools their graduates attend and teachers pile on work without being trained to identify stress-related symptoms, I fear for our children’s health. I am not mollified by the alums of my daughter’s school who return to tell everyone that the rigor of high school prepared them for college, making their first year easier than they’d anticipated. If they make it that far.Candy Schulman
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There's very little authentic study of the humanities remaining. My research assistant came to me two years ago saying she'd been in a seminar in which the teacher spent two hours saying that Walt Whitman was a racist. This isn't even good nonsense. It's insufferable.Harold Bloom
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Maybe that's what we do to the people we love: take shots in the dark and realize too late that we've wounded the people we are trying to protect.Jodi Picoult
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The anti-life of [Jerry Falwell] proves only one thing: that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and truth in this country if you'll just get yourself called Reverend. People like that should be out in the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a cup.Christopher Hitchens
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I call [fourth-wave feminism] fainting—couch feminism, a la the delicate Victorian ladies who retreated to an elegant chaise when overcome with emotion. As an equality feminist from the 1970s, I am dismayed by this new craze. Women are not children. We are not fragile little birds who can’t cope with jokes, works of art, or controversial speakers. Trigger warnings and safe spaces are an infantilizing setback for feminism–and for women.Christina Hoff Sommers
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Life is a bitch; you get used though, or you kill yourself. Either way, you're winning.Ahmed Mostafa
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Everything has a price. The price, however, isn't always money.Ahmed Mostafa
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Income from labor [in the United States] is about as unequally distributed as has ever been observed anywhere.Thomas Piketty
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Having sex with a condom is like eating chocolate with the wrap on.Ahmed Mostafa
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Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men and hang up them.William Shakespeare
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[you’ll acquire] A certain amount of cynicism. This business works on you. When you were in law school you had some noble idea what a lawyer should be. A champion of individual rights; a defender of the Constitution; a guardian of the oppressed; an advocate for your client’s principles. Then after you practice for six months you realize you were nothing but hired guns. Mouthpieces for sale to the highest bidder, available to anybody, any crook, any sleazebag with enough money to pay your outrageous fees. Nothing shocks you. It’s supposed to be an honorable profession, but you’ll meet so many crooked lawyers you’ll want to quit and find an honest job. Yeah Mitch, you’ll get cynical. And it’s sad, really. .John Grisham
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Night sometimes lends such tragic assistance to catastrophe.Victor Hugo
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Sarcasm is the new staircase to stardom.Ahmed Mostafa
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It's ironic how your comfort zone can be tiring sometimes.Ahmed Mostafa
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I WILL CHANGE THIS WORLD ABSOLUTELYDavid Rat
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One is punished most for one’s virtues.Friedrich Nietzsche
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Ability is of little account without opportunity.Unknown
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The heart can get really cold if all you've known is winter.Unknown