Quotes from Jordan B. Peterson

What does that imply? It might be that the true meaning of life is available for discovery, if it can be discovered at all, by each individual, alone—although in communication with others, past and present.

Children in father-absent homes are four times as likely to be poor.

A defeated wolf, for example, will roll over on its back, exposing its throat to the victor, who will not then deign to tear it out.

I believe that government can, sometimes, be a force for good, as well as the necessary arbiter of a small set of necessary rules. Nonetheless, I do not understand why our society is providing public funding to institutions and educators whose stated, conscious and explicit aim is the demolition of the culture that supports them.

The scientific world of matter can be reduced, in some sense, to its fundamental constituent elements: molecules, atoms, even quarks. However, the world of experience has primal constituents, as well. These are the necessary elements whose interactions define drama and fiction. One of these is chaos. Another is order. The third (as there are three) is the process that mediates between the two, which appears identical to what modern people call consciousness.

Porque é que cada pequena localidade não pode ter um santuário dedicado a uma grande peça de arte, em vez de as peças estarem todas juntas de uma forma que torna impossível a quem quer que seja apreendê-las de uma única vez? Uma só obra-prima não é suficiente para uma sala, ou até para um edifício? Ter numa única sala dez grandes obras de arte, ou cem, é absurdo, uma vez que cada uma delas é um mundo em si e por si.

I know someone who was actually chased by a squirrel.)

Cultivating judgment about the difference between virtue and vice is the beginning of wisdom, something that can never be out of date.

These gods are the axioms and foundational beliefs that must be accepted, a priori, rather than proven, before the belief system can be adopted, and when accepted and applied to the world allow the illusion to prevail that knowledge has been produced.

Fatherless children are at much greater risk for drug and alcohol abuse. Children living with married biological parents are less anxious, depressed and delinquent than children living with one or more non-biological parents. Children in single-parent families are also twice as likely to commit suicide.186

He who contrives, defeats his purpose;

True thinking is rare—just like true listening. Thinking is listening to yourself. It's difficult. To think, you have to be at least two people at the same time. Then you have to let those people disagree. Thinking is an internal dialogue between two or more different views of the world.

Nuestros duramente conseguidos métodos adaptativos luchan por dominar, a menudo de forma violenta, en un individuo dado, entre individuos dentro de sociedades, y entre sociedades. Por tanto, se suscita el problema de la organización.

When you love someone, it's not despite their limitations. It's because of their limitations.

The existence of conscience, for example, provides some evidence for that, as does the fact that religious experiences can reliably be induced chemically, as well as through practices such as dancing, chanting, fasting, and meditating.

The process by which an ism system can be generated is simple in its initial stages but baroque enough in its application to mimic (and replace) actual productive theorizing.

What's the price you pay for a high standard of living? Well, that's easy. You virtually always sacrifice the present for the future.

No one finds a match so perfect that the need for continued attention and work vanishes (and, besides, if you found the perfect person, he or she would run away from ever-so-imperfect you in justifiable horror).

the suffering and malevolence that characterize life are real, with the terrible consequences of the real—and our ability to solve problems, by confronting them and taking them on, is also real. By taking responsibility, we can find a meaningful path, improve our personal lot psychologically, and make what is intolerably wrong genuinely better. Thus, we can have our cake and eat it, too.

Peterson J.B., Pihl, R.O., Gianoulakis, C., Conrod, P., Finn, P.R., Stewart, S.H., LeMarquand, D.G. Bruce, K.R. (1996). "Ethanol-induced change in cardiac and endogenous opiate function and risk for alcoholism." Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, 20, 1542-1552.

It is for this reason that we voluntarily and happily place limitations on ourselves. Every time we play a game, for example, we accept a set of arbitrary restrictions. We narrow and limit ourselves, and explore the possibilities thereby revealed. That is what makes the game.

The ideologue begins by selecting a few abstractions in whose low-resolution representations hide large, undifferentiated chunks of the world. Some examples include "the economy," "the nation," "the environment," "the patriarchy," "the people," "the rich," "the poor," "the oppressed," and "the oppressors.

Children hit first because aggression is innate, although more dominant in some individuals and less in others, and, second, because aggression facilitates desire. It's foolish to assume that such behaviour must be learned. A snake does not have to be taught to strike.

To learn is to die voluntarily and be born again, in great ways and small