Charles Murray Quotes

The average Harvard freshman in 1952 would have placed in the bottom 10 percent of the incoming class by 1960.

The goal of an end to poverty is so noble that governments have successfully used the end to justify the means. The means have been high taxation of the productive members of society and arrays of bur...

I have been drawn to Milton Friedman’s argument for a negative income tax (NIT) that entirely replaces the existing system of income transfers and social services. The quid pro quo would be that the g...

The most lovable of exceptional American qualities (is) our tradition of insisting that we are part of the middle class, even if we aren’t, and of interacting with our fellow citizens as if we were al...

Traditions decay when the reality facing the new generation changes. The habit of thrift decays if there is no penalty for not saving. The work ethic decays if there is no penalty for not working. Nei...

Burlington, Vermont, is an example of a certain kind of small city that David Brooks calls Latte Towns, enclaves of affluent and well-educated people, sometimes in scenic locales such as Santa Fe or A...

Regardless of whether people have free will, human flourishing requires that they live in an environment in which they are treated as if they did.

The twin propositions of this book are that we are at the end of the American project as the founders intended it, but that opportunities are opening for preserving the best qualities of the American...

That’s the UBI. A cash grant, with a surtax, funded by eliminating the transfers that currently exist. I require that $3,000 be devoted to health care, but otherwise I will argue that many of the best...

All systematic civil disobedience should involve acts that are malum prohibitum: illegal because the state says so, not because they are bad in themselves.

Henceforth, federal, state, and local governments shall make no law nor establish any program that transfers general tax revenues to some citizens and not to others, whether those transfers consist of...

Family structure that produces the best outcomes for children, on average, are two biological parents who remain married. Divorced parents produce the next-best outcomes. Whether the parents remarry o...

For a discussion of the Founders’ view that a successful republic required a high level of virtue in the people, see Charles Murray, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2012 (New York: Crow...

There’s a lot to like about day-to-day life in the advanced welfare states of western Europe. They are great places to visit. But the view of life that has taken root in those same countries is proble...

Using which instead of that. That introduces essential clauses while which introduces nonessential clauses. Consider the sentence Tools that have sharp edges can cause nasty cuts. If you remove the wo...

Since they are in fact academically gifted, it is fine to tell them that. Trying to hide their academic ability from them would be futile anyway. But they must also be told explicitly, forcefully, and...

There is more to life than work, and a life without ample space for family and friends is incomplete. But this much should not be controversial: Vocation—one’s calling in life—plays a large role in de...

Some people pursue happiness in ways that tend to be accompanied by large incomes, others in ways that tend to be accompanied by lower incomes. In a free society, these choices are made voluntarily, w...

In the decades ahead, a life well-lived will often have to be one that does not involve a job traditionally defined. A universal basic income will be an essential part of the transition to a world unl...

The main attraction of a generous NIT is that it could resolve an impasse. As matters stand, every element of limited government now faces a blanket objection: But what about poor people? An NIT could...