But the story of the golden calf also reminds us that without rules we quickly become slaves to our passions—and there’s nothing freeing about that. (Location 55)
Note: Without rules we are slaves to our passions
Ideologies are simple ideas, disguised as science or philosophy, that purport to explain the complexity of the world and offer remedies that will perfect it. Ideologues are people who pretend they know how to “make the world a better place” before they’ve taken care of their own chaos within. (Location 158)
Note: Ideologie seek to explain the complexities of the world and how to fix it
Above all, he alerted his students to topics rarely discussed in university, such as the simple fact that all the ancients, from Buddha to the biblical authors, knew what every slightly worn-out adult knows, that life is suffering. If you are suffering, or someone close to you is, that’s sad. But alas, it’s not particularly special. We don’t suffer only because “politicians are dimwitted,” or “the system is corrupt,” or because you and I, like almost everyone else, can legitimately describe ourselves, in some way, as a victim of something or someone. It is because we are born human that we are guaranteed a good dose of suffering. (Location 196)
Tags: suffering
Note: life is suffering
Aristotle defined the virtues simply as the ways of behaving that are most conducive to happiness in life. (Location 242)
In a crisis, the inevitable suffering that life entails can rapidly make a mockery of the idea that happiness is the proper pursuit of the individual. On the radio show, I suggested, instead, that a deeper meaning was required. I noted that the nature of such meaning was constantly re-presented in the great stories of the past, and that it had more to do with developing character in the face of suffering than with happiness. (Location 342)
Tags: suffering
Note: .suffering developing character in the face of suffering is the pursuit of life
People who live by the same code are rendered mutually predictable to one another. They act in keeping with each other’s expectations and desires. They can cooperate. They can even compete peacefully, because everyone knows what to expect from everyone else. A shared belief system, partly psychological, partly acted out, simplifies everyone—in their own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Shared beliefs simplify the world, as well, because people who know what to expect from one another can act together to tame the world. There is perhaps nothing more important than the maintenance of this organization—this simplification. If it’s threatened, the great ship of state rocks. (Location 395)
Tags: sharedbeliefs
Note: .sharedbeliefs shared beliefs help people cooperate
no value, no meaning. Between value systems, however, there is the possibility of conflict. We are thus eternally caught between the most diamantine rock and the hardest of places: loss of group-centred belief renders life chaotic, miserable, intolerable; presence of group-centred belief makes conflict with other groups inevitable. (Location 417)
Tags: shredbeliefs
Note: .shredbeliefs shared beliefs make conflict inevitable
the West, we have been withdrawing from our tradition-, religion- and even nation-centred cultures, partly to decrease the danger of group conflict. But we are increasingly falling prey to the desperation of meaninglessness, and that is no improvement at all. (Location 419)
Note: Life loses value without shared beliefs
we can no longer afford conflict—certainly not on the scale of the world conflagrations of the twentieth century. Our technologies of destruction have become too powerful. (Location 422)
Note: We cant afford conflict as our weapons are too powerful
How could the world be freed from the terrible dilemma of conflict, on the one hand, and psychological and social dissolution, on the other? The answer was this: through the elevation and development of the individual, and through the willingness of everyone to shoulder the burden of Being and to take the heroic path. We must each adopt as much responsibility as possible for individual life, society and the world. (Location 442)
Tags: responsibility
Note: .responsibility we must all take as much reslonsibility as we can
When the aristocracy catches a cold, as it is said, the working class dies of pneumonia. (Location 523)
it employs special jets under its eyes to direct streams of liquid at its opponent. The liquid spray contains a mix of chemicals that tell the other lobster about its size, sex, health, and mood. (Location 549)
Note: Lobsters spray liquid which give information about its size,sex,mood
“It’s not what we don’t know that gets us in trouble. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t (Location 657)
Tags: quotes
Note: .quotes
There is very little difference between the capacity for mayhem and destruction, integrated, and strength of character. This is one of the most difficult lessons of life. (Location 885)
Emotion is partly bodily expression, and can be amplified (or dampened) by that expression. (Location 900)
Note: Emotion can be amplified by body expression
attend carefully to your posture. Quit drooping and hunching around. Speak your mind. Put your desires forward, as if you had a right to them—at least the same right as others. Walk tall and gaze forthrightly ahead. Dare to be dangerous. Encourage the serotonin to flow plentifully through the neural pathways desperate for its calming influence. (Location 924)
It is far better to render Beings in your care competent than to protect them. (Location 1217)
violent, impulsive selfishness and the mindless greed and brutality that accompanies it. People with those aggressive tendencies still exist. At least now they know that such behaviour is sub-optimal, and either try to control it or encounter major social obstacles if they don’t. (Location 1415)