Quotes from Arthur C. Brooks

As a political independent, I would gladly vote for any political party dedicated to limited government and entrepreneurship.

The key to happiness is not being rich; it's doing something arduous and creating something of value and then being able to reflect on the fruits of your labor.

Whether we look at capitalism, taxes, business, or government, the data show a clear and consistent pattern: 70 percent of Americans support the free enterprise system and are unsupportive of big government.

Free enterprise is essentially a formula not just for wealth creation, but for life satisfaction.

The more control you have over your life, the more responsible you feel for your own success - or failure.

If you think spreading money around by force seems like an odd definition of fairness, you're not alone.

There is nothing inherently fair about equalizing incomes. If the government penalizes you for working harder than somebody else, that is unfair. If you save your money but retire with the same pension as a free-spending neighbor, that is also unfair.

The truth is that relative income is not directly related to happiness. Nonpartisan social-survey data clearly show that the big driver of happiness is earned success: a person's belief that he has created value in his life or the life of others.

We will have bigger bureaucracies, bigger labor unions, and bigger state-run corporations. It will be harder to be an entrepreneur because of punitive taxes and regulations. The rewards of success will be expropriated for the sake of attaining greater income equality.

Almost no one is ever insulted into agreement.

So what do the young hotshots need? Old people on product teams, old people in marketing, and old people in the C-suite. They need not just whiz-bang ideas but actual wisdom that only comes with years in the school of hard knocks.

I invented ideas early on; I synthesize ideas—mine and others—now.

Let's take a little quiz. 1. Do you define your self-worth in terms of your job title or professional position? 2. Do you quantify your own success in terms of money, power, or prestige? 3. Do you fail to see clearly—or are you uncomfortable with—what comes after your last professional successes? 4. Is your "retirement plan" to go on and on without stopping? 5. Do you dream about being remembered for your professional successes?

The joy that came to your caveman ancestor from finding a sweet berry on a bush couldn't occupy him for very long, lest he be distracted from the threat of the tiger, for whom your ancestor would make a nice lunch. That's why, when it comes to success, you can't ever get enough.

We don't have an anger problem in American politics. We have a contempt problem. . . . If you listen to how people talk to each other in political life today, you notice it is with pure contempt. When somebody around you treats you with contempt, you never quite forget it. So if we want to solve the problem of polarization today, we have to solve the contempt problem.

capitalism as an economic and social system that makes people unhappy by making them into part of a human machine in which humanity is expunged and only productivity remains.

m?na, which in Sanskrit refers to an inflated mind that disregards others in favor of the self

Crystallized intelligence, relying as it does on a stock of knowledge, tends to increase with age through one's forties, fifties, and sixties—and does not diminish until quite late in life, if at all.

There is evidence that as we become less exposed to opposing viewpoints, we become less logically competent as people.

From my drive to be superior to others, deliver me. From the allure of the world's empty promises, deliver me. From my feelings of professional superiority, deliver me. From allowing my pride to supplant my love, deliver me. From the pains of withdrawing from my addiction, deliver me.

In Acharya's words, "The moment you realize the Self, you know that you are the Self, you are not the body. You know that you are the infinite Truth. That recognition, that realization is sannyasa.

when you finish this chapter, go listen to his Saint Matthew Passion or Mass in B Minor, the piece I am listening to as I write these words. You will understand why some call him the "Fifth Evangelist.

The goal of the last phase of life is to drink from the chalice of life's deepest secrets. But to be able to do that requires study and work on philosophical and theological matters, which happens in the years of vanaprastha. You can't just show up and expect to be enlightened; that would be like showing up to the Olympics without ever having trained as an athlete.

There are two pillars of happiness. . . . One is love. The other is finding a way of coping with life that does not push love away."[8] And