{ "type": "quote", "site": { "name": "Leafy Quotes", "language": "en", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com" }, "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire/we-are-doomed/the-ordinary-modes", "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire/we-are-doomed/the-ordinary-modes.json", "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire/we-are-doomed/the-ordinary-modes.md", "id": "9affc546-01b3-468f-a8bf-0c035bcea5c7", "slug": "the-ordinary-modes", "text": "The ordinary modes of human thinking are magical, religious, social, and personal. We want our wishes to come true; we want the universe to care about us; we want the approval of those around us; we want to get even with that s.o.b. who insulted us at the last tribal council. For most people, wanting to know the cold truth about the world is way, way down the list.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Derbyshire", "slug": "john-derbyshire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire" }, "book": { "title": "We Are Doomed", "slug": "we-are-doomed", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire/we-are-doomed" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Derbyshire#We_Are_Doomed:_Reclaiming_Conservative_Pessimism_(2009)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:28", "more_from_book": [ { "id": "e6a9243a-2a48-43f8-a1a0-8c0147643acc", "slug": "unbelievers-may-think", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire/we-are-doomed/unbelievers-may-think", "text": "Unbelievers may think - all right, we do think - Christianity is only slightly less nutty than Islam; but Christianity is ours. We've got along with it for several centuries; and the relationship between Western unbelievers and Western Christians, if not always polite, is stable and comfortable. Can we fit Islam in like that?", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Derbyshire#We_Are_Doomed:_Reclaiming_Conservative_Pessimism_(2009)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:28" }, { "id": "dc03cb22-def7-4f81-9d16-93828ac5ae50", "slug": "all-good-ideas", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire/we-are-doomed/all-good-ideas", "text": "All good ideas are of their time... and are liable to turn from blessings into blights if persisted in too long. The justifiable right of workers to organize in protection of their interests turned at last into featherbedding, the Teamster rackets, auto companies made uncompetitive by extravagant beneļ¬ts agreements, and government-worker unions voting themselves ever-bigger shares of the public fisc. The campaign for full civil rights and racial justice turned into affirmative action, race quotas, grievance lawsuits, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and everlasting racial rancor.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "change", "slug": "change", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change" }, { "name": "ideas", "slug": "ideas", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ideas" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Derbyshire#We_Are_Doomed:_Reclaiming_Conservative_Pessimism_(2009)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:28" }, { "id": "cf75e38e-2b1f-4dac-a42c-54b94ccb97ec", "slug": "the-remarkable-thing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire/we-are-doomed/the-remarkable-thing", "text": "The remarkable thing about the Diversity cult is that all the circumstances of the actual human world refute its tenets, wherever we look. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that there has never been an ideology so heartily and jealously embraced by all the main institutions of a society, that was at the same time so obviously at odds with the evidence of our senses. It is as if the entire Western world had committed itself to the belief that human beings can fly by flapping their arms.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "ideas", "slug": "ideas", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ideas" }, { "name": "diversity", "slug": "diversity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/diversity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Derbyshire#We_Are_Doomed:_Reclaiming_Conservative_Pessimism_(2009)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:28" } ] }