I have never been quite able to make up my mind whether there is no new thing under the sun or whether we live in completely unprecedented times. When we look at events close up and nearby in time and place, we are inclined to think that nothing like them has ever happened before; but with the ...

When I first saw the mural of George Floyd with large angel wings, I assumed that it was a satire on his sanctification—effective, perhaps, but not in the best of taste. Shortly afterwards, however, I realized that the mural was in earnest: The picture of the mural in the newspaper included a man ...

There is no descriptive term in sociology, except lumpenproletariat, that serves so much as one of abuse as petit bourgeois, so much so that I doubt that anyone would proudly proclaim himself a member of that despised class. No one has ever coined a slogan such as “Petit bourgeois of the world ...

I once gave a talk in New Zealand in which I said that, thanks to the inefficiency of the police and the leniency of the courts in Britain, a burglar spent on average three days in prison; in which case the question was not why there were so many burglars, but why there were so few. To this ...

I used to think that the walls of my flat in Paris were solid enough to be soundproof; until, that is, the new tenant moved in next door. He was not an unpleasant young man (of about 30 years old). He had the look of an intellectual, but of course one mustn’t judge an intellect by its beard. ...

The weather was fine—I do not remember a spring as fine as this, but perhaps I have never before had so much time in which to remark upon the weather. In Paris, however, they have not yet opened the parks or gardens, for fear, I suppose, that people would fail to keep their proper social ...

As is well-known by the naive, science is the disinterested search for truth about the empirical world. Vanity, greed, pride, rivalry, enmity, thirst for fame and other human passions do not enter into it. A scientist is delighted if his colleague discovers something important that he has ...

I rarely feel sorry for professional politicians, especially powerful ones; after all, they have chosen their career and (especially in modern conditions) have generally pursued power to the exclusion of all other possible goals, which is not admirable. As often as not, they have not much cultural ...

Compared with the slum dwellers of São Paulo who erect their own shacks in a day or two, the average French (or British) architect is a complete aesthetic illiterate and incompetent, or perhaps moron would be a better word for it. Aesthetically, if not hygienically, the favelas of Rio de Janeiro ...

Interviewed recently about COVID-19, a subject on which I am now, like only 1,500,000,000 others in the world, an expert, I was asked as a last question whether I thought that any good would come of it. I am afraid I was not quick enough (I am getting on in age) to answer, “The end of mass ...