Self-doubt is at the core of our being. We need people who by their attitude and words will convince us that we are not as bad as we think we are. Hence the vital role of judicious praise.
Author: Eric Hoffer | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Leadership, Psychology | Behavior
It is better to be bossed by men of little faith, who set their hearts on toys, than by men animated by lofty ideals who are ready to sacrifice themselves and others for a cause.
Author: Eric Hoffer | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Leadership, Life & Society
People today pay for meaning more than they pray for it.
Author: Douglas Atkin | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Concepts, Meaning
The presidency is like a soft leather glove, and it takes the shape of the hand that’s put into it. And when a very big hand is put into it and stretches the glove — stretches the office — the glove never quite shrinks back to what it was.
Author: George Will | Subjects: America, Politics & Public Policy
Moral outrage, while strangely satisfying, gives people a sense of accomplishing something without actually accomplishing anything.
Author: Mark Manson | Subject: Psychology | Behavior
By giving voice to everybody, the internet unintentionally gave voice back to the uglier sub-cultures of society that were once barred from any mainstream attention: the bigots, the conspiracy theorists, and the cranks. In our idealism of giving the whole world a way to express themselves, we forgot that most people say really awful shit.
Author: Mark Manson | Subjects: Communication, IT | Technology, Life & Society
Through the entire American story, white Christianity has served as the central source of moral legitimacy for a society explicitly built to value the lives of white people over Black people. And this legacy remains present and measurable in the cultural DNA of contemporary white Christianity, not only among evangelicals in the South but also among mainline Protestants in the Midwest and Catholics in the … [ Read more ]
Author: Robert P. Jones | Subjects: America, History, Race Relations, Religion
In the final analysis, the progress of our civilization will be retarded if any large body of citizens falls behind. Without the help of thousands of others, any one of us would die, naked and starved.
Author: Franklin D. Roosevelt | Subjects: Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy
Death is a meaningful part of life, just like human suffering. Both do not rob the existence of human beings of meaning but make it meaningful in the first place. Thus, it is precisely the uniqueness of our existence in the world, the irretrievability of our lifetime, the irrevocability of everything with which we fill it — or leave unfulfilled — that gives our existence … [ Read more ]
Author: Viktor Frankl | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Concepts, Meaning, Personal Improvement
Happiness should not, must not, and can never be a goal, but only an outcome; the outcome of the fulfillment of that which in Tagore’s poem is called duty. […] All human striving for happiness, in this sense, is doomed to failure as luck can only fall into one’s lap but can never be hunted down.
Author: Viktor Frankl | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Happiness, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
Pleasure in itself cannot give our existence meaning; thus the lack of pleasure cannot take away meaning from life.
Author: Viktor Frankl | Subjects: Concepts, Insight, Meaning, Personal Improvement
The golden age of consumerism […] has built a global economy by continually robbing us of the sense of meaning and selling it back to us at the price of the product.
Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Economics | Economy, Life & Society
Our collective memory always tends toward amnesia and erasure — especially of periods scarred by civilizational shame.
Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: History, Life & Society
I think that he [Theodore Roosevelt] makes a serious mistake in interfering—politically, at least. His tendency to make the executive power stronger than the houses of congress is bound to be a bad thing, especially when a man of weaker personality succeeds him in office.
Author: Franklin D. Roosevelt | Subjects: History, Politics & Public Policy
The only counterweight to capitalism is government. Labor would like to be the counterweight but it isn’t quite yet. So the one entity that can really create a restraining mechanism on runaway capitalism is government.
Author: Clay S. Jenkinson | Subjects: Economics | Economy, Politics & Public Policy
The people most likely to believe the government is too incompetent to be trusted are often the people most likely to believe the government also has the ability to secretly orchestrate massive operations under the noses of most Americans.
Author: Joe Forrest | Subjects: Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior
Conspiracy theories are self-perpetuating rationalization machines. They eat facts, distort reality, and destroy relationships. And, by the time someone realizes they’re in too deep, it’s often too late to salvage a reality-based worldview (or the relationships of the people they isolated in the process).
Author: Joe Forrest | Subjects: Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Thought | Inquiry
Facts are the center. We don’t pretend that certain facts are in dispute to give the appearance of fairness to people who don’t believe them. Balance is irrelevant. It doesn’t have anything to do with truth, logic or reality.
Subjects: Concepts, Facts | Bias, Intelligence | Knowledge, Politics & Public Policy
We are — as individuals, as a species, as a society — unfinished and incomplete, our story unwritten. Darwin and [Rachel] Carson both intimated that while there is disorientation in accepting ourselves as increments in advancement the arc of which far exceeds our lifetimes, there is also transcendence, for a story yet unfinished is a story with myriad possible endings — a story that forestalls … [ Read more ]
Author: Maria Popova | Subjects: Concepts, Life & Society, Meaning, Personal Improvement
The way to love anything is to realize it might be lost.
Author: G. K. Chesterton | Subjects: Concepts, Love, Personal Improvement