Quotes from Jordan B. Peterson

Failing to look under the bed when you strongly suspect a monster is lurking there is not an advisable strategy.

But success makes us complacent. We forget to pay attention. We take what we have for granted. We turn a blind eye. We fail to notice that things are changing, or that corruption is taking root. And everything falls apart. Is that the fault of reality—of God? Or do things fall apart because we have not paid sufficient attention?

In His human form, Christ sacrificed himself voluntarily to the truth, to the good, to God. In consequence, He died and was reborn. The Word that produces order from Chaos sacrifices everything, even itself, to God. That single sentence, wise beyond comprehension, sums up Christianity.

Stretching yourself beyond the boundaries of your current self requires carefully choosing and then pursuing ideals: ideals that are up there, above you, superior to you—and that you can't always be sure you will reach. But if it's uncertain that our ideals are attainable,

And given that we are moral animals, what must be the effect of our simplistic modern relativism upon us? It means we are hobbling ourselves by pretending to be something we are not.

A functional social institution—a hierarchy devoted to producing something of value, beyond the mere insurance of its own survival—can utilize the conservative types to carefully implement processes of tried-and-true value, and the creative, liberal types to determine how what is old and out of date might be replaced by something new and more valuable.

How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way, Is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five? —William Blake, from "A Memorable Fancy," The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Once having understood Hell, researched it, so to speak—particularly your own individual Hell—you could decide against going there or creating that. You could aim elsewhere.

We are always and simultaneously at point "a" (which is less desirable than it could be), moving towards point "b" (which we deem better, in accordance with our explicit and implicit values).

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.

El orden, cuando se lleva demasiado lejos, cae en el desequilibrio y puede también manifestarse de una forma destructiva y terrible.

Anxiety and depression cannot be easily treated if the sufferer has unpredictable daily routines. The systems that mediate negative emotion are tightly tied to the properly cyclical circadian rhythms.

Even the most assiduous of parents cannot fully protect their children, even if they lock them in the basement, safely away from drugs, alcohol and internet porn. In that extreme case, the too-cautious, too-caring parent merely substitutes him or herself for the other terrible problems of life. This is the great Freudian Oedipal nightmare. It is far better to render beings in your care competent than to protect them.

Stretching yourself beyond the boundaries of your current self requires carefully choosing and then pursuing ideals: ideals that are up there, above you, superior to you—and that you can't always be sure you will reach.

We use our past effectively when it helps us repeat desirable—and avoid repeating undesirable—experiences. We want to know what happened but, more importantly, we want to know why. Why is wisdom. Why enables us to avoid making the same mistake again and again, and if we are fortunate helps us repeat our successes.

El caos, lo desconocido, se asocia simbólicamente con lo femenino. Eso se debe en parte a que todas las cosas que hemos ido conociendo nacieron en un primer momento de lo desconocido, de la misma forma que todos los seres con los que nos hemos encontrado nacieron de madres. El caos es mater, origen, fuente, madre; materia, la sustancia de la que están hechas las cosas.

To manage complex affairs properly, it is necessary to be cold enough in vision to separate the power hungry and self-serving pseudoadvocate of the status quo from the genuine conservative; and the self-deceptive, irresponsible rebel without a cause from the truly creative. And to manage this means to separate those factors within the confines of one's own soul, as well as among other people.

What you hear in the forest but cannot see might be a tiger. It might even be a conspiracy of tigers, each hungrier and more vicious than the other, led by a crocodile. But it might not be, too. If you turn and look, perhaps you'll see that it's just a squirrel. (I know someone who was actually chased by a squirrel.) Something is out there in the woods. You know that with certainty. But often it's only a squirrel.

For Jung, whatever was at the top of an individual's moral hierarchy was, for all intents and purposes, that person's ultimate value, that person's god. It was what the person acted out. It was what the person believed most deeply. Something enacted is not a fact, or even a set of facts. Instead, it's a personality—or, more precisely, a choice between two opposing personalities.

We only see what we aim at. The rest of the world (and that's most of it) is hidden. If we start aiming at something different—something like "I want my life to be better"—our minds will start presenting us with new information, derived from the previously hidden world, to aid us in that pursuit.

The philosopher's stone remains undiscovered in the gutter; and the information hidden in the round chaos, beckoning, remains unexplored. Such omission is the voluntary refusal of expanded consciousness. After all, the pathway to the Holy Grail has its beginnings in the darkest part of the forest, and what you need remains hidden where you least want to look.

We live within a framework that defines the present as eternally lacking and the future as eternally better. If we did not see things this way, we would not act

There are only two major reasons for resentment: being taken advantage of (or allowing yourself to be taken advantage of), or whiny refusal to adopt responsibility and grow up.

Be grateful in spite of your suffering.