ERNEST VAN DEN HAAG

One abstains from dangerous acts because of vague, inchoate, habitual and, above all, preconscious fears.

The crime should be punished no matter whether poverty or wealth caused it to occur, because the crime is wrong.

Asked to make a list of the men who have most dominated the thinking of the modern world, many educated people would name Freud, Einstein, Marx and Darwin. Of these four, only Darwin was not Jewish. In a world where Jews are only a tiny percentage of the population, what is the secret of the disproportionate importance the Jews have had in the history of Western culture?

Although I am a strong political conservative, I now believe that the costs of our fruitless struggle against illegal drugs are not worth the modest benefits likely to be achieved.

Don’t conflate the morality of the death penalty with its unjust distribution among those who are guilty … Equality is less important, morally, than justice … We ought to distribute justice as equally as we can, even though we cannot distribute it perfectly.

I am reminded of a colleague who reiterated all my homosexual patients are quite sick - to which I finally replied so are all my heterosexual patients.

Don’t conflate the morality of the death penalty with its unjust distribution among those who are guilty … Equality is less important, morally, than justice … We ought to distribute justice as equally as we can, even though we cannot distribute it perfectly.

One abstains from dangerous acts because of vague, inchoate, habitual and, above all, preconscious fears.

I am reminded of a colleague who reiterated all my homosexual patients are quite sick - to which I finally replied so are all my heterosexual patients.

Asked to make a list of the men who have most dominated the thinking of the modern world, many educated people would name Freud, Einstein, Marx and Darwin. Of these four, only Darwin was not Jewish. In a world where Jews are only a tiny percentage of the population, what is the secret of the disproportionate importance the Jews have had in the history of Western culture?

The crime should be punished no matter whether poverty or wealth caused it to occur, because the crime is wrong.

Although I am a strong political conservative, I now believe that the costs of our fruitless struggle against illegal drugs are not worth the modest benefits likely to be achieved.