S C I E N C E       W O R K       H I S T O R Y      D E M O C R A C Y

WRITINGS AND TEACHINGS

KENNETH WESTHUES
Professor Emeritus
University of Waterloo, Canada

Updated with quotes for February 2025:

Classic:
The surest way to work up a crusade in favour of some good cause is to promise people that they will have a chance of maltreating someone. Men must be bribed to build up and do good by the offer of an opportunity to hurt and pull down.
— Aldous Huxley, introduction to a new edition of Samuel Butler's Erewhon, 1933.

Direct:
In lectures on social elimination, I have sometimes said that in every human being are three appetites: for food, for sex, and for humiliating somebody else.
— Section on Social Elimination, pp. 24-29 in Envy of Excellence, 2006.

Garden moment for February 2025:

In Florida, many bromeliads come into bloom in the winter months. A striking example is the matchstick (Aechmea gamosepala), from southern Brazil. It can tolerate a freeze several degrees below 0 C.

Email comments and inquiries; allow a few days for response.

Thanks to the Arts Computing Office at the University of Waterloo for hostlng this website from its inception in 2002 until 2014, when it moved to the current, independent URL.