Too true!

Is it humanly possible not to be impressed by the sheer erudition of the following passage:

Comparisons are odious, generalisations dangerous and stereotypes invidious, but without them conversation would be tedious and talk nothing but an endless regression of subordinate clauses, each qualifying what the previous one had asserted. It is cowardly and dishonest to refuse these means of arriving at truth, nor would we approach any nearer to truth were we to do so. Refusing to generalise is often a form of denial.
 

The author of this superb (and very true) piece of writing is Theodore Dalrymple a nom de plume of course, and as delicious as is his name, his writing is even better. A retired surgeon and psychiatrist; his insight into the human condition is acute, funny and disturbing. Perhaps he could even be considered prophetic in some of his observations. A writer well worth taking the trouble to read.