Quotes from Jordan B. Peterson

If anything, Freud showed that we are both more immoral and more moral than we are aware of. This kind of "non-judgmentalism," in therapy, is a powerful and liberating technique or tactic—an ideal attitude when you want to better understand yourself.

And maybe these responses are tests, too—tests deeply associated with the lack of courage to trust: "If you really loved me, you would brave the terrible landscape that I have arrayed around myself to discover the real me." And perhaps there is even something to such claims, implicit though they may be. A certain testing of commitment might have its utility.

In their poverty, they explore the city, and they discover some ratty, quasi-criminal area that has seen better days. They visit, look, and poke about, and they think, "You know, with a little work, this area could be cool." Then they move in, piece together some galleries, and put up some art.

You are important to other people, as much as to yourself. You have some vital role to play in the unfolding destiny of the world. You are, therefore, morally obliged to take care of yourself.

la familia que se pelea entre las ruinas de su hogar devastado por un terremoto tiene muchas menos probabilidades de reconstruir algo que la familia fortalecida por la confianza y la devoción mutuas

those who start to have will probably get more.

People differ in intelligence, which is in large part the ability to learn and transform.

It much better for any relationship when both partners are strong.

And you still must live with yourself. In the short term, perhaps you are protected from the revelation of your insufficiency by your refusal to make yourself clear. Every ideal is a judge, after all: the judge who says, "You are not manifesting your true potential." No ideals? No judge. But the price paid for that is purposelessness. This is a high price.

He chose rebirth over descent into Hell.

tedious, ideology-ridden professors.

The best player is therefore not the winner of any given game but, among many other things, he or she who is invited by the largest number of others to play the most extensive series of games.

For the Taoists, meaning is to be found on the border between the ever-entwined pair. To walk that border is to stay on the path of life, the divine Way. And that's much better than happiness.

We have very irrational souls, very powerful, romantic, emotional, highly motivated souls.

If you stick your neck out, then the sword will come.

Imagine a toddler repeatedly striking his mother in the face. Why would he do such a thing? It's a stupid question. It's unacceptably naive. The answer is obvious. To dominate his mother. To see if he can get away with it. Violence, after all, is no mystery. It's peace that's the mystery. Violence is the default. It's easy. It's peace that is difficult: learned, inculcated, earned.

Nietzsche, for his part, posited that individual human beings would have to invent their own values in the aftermath of God's death. But this is the element of his thinking that appears weakest, psychologically:

Our society faces the increasing call to deconstruct its stabilizing traditions to include smaller and smaller numbers of people who do not or will not fit into the categories upon which even our perceptions are based.

If you make what you want clear and commit yourself to its pursuit, you may fail. But if you do not make what you want clear, then you will certainly fail.

Artists must be contending with something they do not understand, or they are not artists. Instead, they are posers, or romantics (often romantic failures), or narcissists, or actors (and not in the creative sense).

it is much harder to extract someone from a chasm than to lift him from a ditch.

You must shepherd your limited resources carefully. Seeing is very difficult, so you must choose what to see, and let the rest go.

You can be pretty smart if you can just shut up.

But there's something to be said for recognizing that existence and limitation are inextricably linked.