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To be sure, feelings are about something different. But what makes them different is that they are first and foremost about the body, that they offer us the cognition of our visceral and musculoskeletal state as it becomes affected by preorganized mechanisms and by the cognitive structures we have developed under their influence. Feelings let us mind the body, attentively, as during an emotional state, or faintly, as during a background state.

— Descartes' Error

When a member of the British royal family revealed that she had adopted one of the slum fashions and had had her navel pierced, no one was in the least surprised. Where fashion in clothes, bodily adornment, and music are concerned, it is the underclass that increasingly sets the pace. Never before has there been so much downward cultural aspiration.

— Life at The Bottom, by Theodore Dalrymple

The liberal assumption, in this as in most things, is that to understand is to approve (or at least to pardon), and therefore my disapproval indicated a lack of understanding.

— Life at The Bottom, by Theodore Dalrymple

تَذَكَّرتُ لَيلى وَالسِنينَ الخَوالِيا
وَأَيّامَ لا نَخشى عَلى اللَهوِ ناهِيا

وَيَومٍ كَظِلِّ الرُمحِ قَصَّرتُ ظِلَّهُ
بِلَيلى فَلَهّاني وَما كُنتُ لاهِيا

— قيس بن الملوح

It is important to realize, however, that knowing that a given chemical (manufactured inside or outside the body) causes a given feeling to occur is not the same as knowing the mechanism for how this result is achieved. Knowing that a substance is working on certain systems, in certain circuits and receptors, and in certain neurons, does not explain why you feel happy or sad. It is only the beginning of an explanation.
reducing depression to a statement about the availability of serotonin or norepinephrine in general–a popular statement in the days and age of Prozac–is unacceptably rude.

— Descartes' Error

اي وعلي

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It is a mistake to suppose that all men, or at least all Englishmen, want to be free.
On the contrary, if freedom entails responsibility, many of them want none of it. They would happily exchange their liberty for a modest (if illusory) security.
Even those who claim to cherish their freedom are rather less enthusiastic about taking the consequences of their actions. The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong.

— Life at The Bottom, by Theodore Dalrymple

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He writes in a familiar controlled anger, sarcasm, and disappointment. And he writes eloquently.