“If there is one thing developmental psychologists have learned over the years, it is that parents don’t have to be brilliant psychologists to succeed. They don’t have to be supremely gifted teachers. Most of the stuff parents do with flashcards and special drills and tutorials to hone their kids…”Tagged: How To Think, The Art of Awareness, Psychology, Philosophy
“Create an entourage of heroes. Put their pictures on your wall, and keep them in your mind.”Tagged: Commencement, Graduation, Speech
“When you have trouble making up your mind about something, tell yourself you’ll settle it by flipping a coin. But don’t go by how the coin flips; go by your emotional reaction to the coin flip. Are you happy or sad it came up heads or tails?”Tagged: Graduation, Speech, Commencement, Advice, Good Advice
“Souls are not saved in bundles. Love is the necessary force.”Tagged: Love, Why we believe what we believe
“Moderation is not an ideology; it’s a way of coping with the complexity of the world.”Tagged: In Praise of Moderation, Against Extremism, US Politics, Immigration
“Warriors on one side inevitably call forth warriors on the other.”Tagged: In Praise of Moderation, Part and Parcel, Against Extremism, US Politics, Immigration
“Moderation requires courage. Moderates don’t operate from the safety of their ideologically pure galleons. They are unafraid to face the cross currents, detached from clan, acknowledging how little they know.”Tagged: US Politics, Immigration
“Truth before justice. All political movements must face inconvenient facts — thoughts and data that seem to aid their foes. If you try to suppress those facts, by banning a speaker or firing an employee, then you are putting the goals of your cause, no matter how noble, above the search for truth.…”Tagged: US Politics, Immigration
“Moderates do not see politics as warfare. Instead, national politics is a voyage with a fractious fleet. Wisdom is finding the right formation of ships for each specific circumstance so the whole assembly can ride the waves forward for another day. Moderation is not an ideology; it’s a way of coping…”Tagged: US Politics, Immigration
“Most successful people begin with two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so.”Tagged: Succes, Growth
“Terence J. Tollaksen wrote that his purpose became clearer once he began to recognize the decision trap: an amazingly consistent phenomena whereby ‘big’ decisions turn out to have much less impact on a life as a whole than the myriad of small seemingly insignificant ones.”Tagged: How To Think, Philosophy, Small Life, Humility, Ambition
“I expected most contributors would follow the commencement-speech clichés of our high-achieving culture: dream big; set ambitious goals; try to change the world. In fact, a surprising number of people found their purpose by going the other way, by pursuing the small, happy life.”Tagged: How To Think, Philosophy, Minimalism, Small Life, Joy
“The central fallacy in modern life is that accomplishments can produce deep satisfaction. That's false.”Tagged: How To Think, Philosophy, Advice, Success, Thinking
“The average college GPA for a self-made millionaire is somewhere in the low B range. But at some crucial point in their lives, somebody told them they were too stupid to do something and they set out to prove the bastards wrong.”Tagged: character, Failure, Success, success advice, Advice
“We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge, but we can’t be wise with other men’s wisdom.” That’s because wisdom isn’t a body of information. It’s the moral quality of knowing what you don’t know and figuring out a way to handle your ignorance, uncertainty, and limitation.”Tagged: How To Think, character, The Person You'll Become
“We don’t become better because we acquire new information. We become better because we acquire better loves. We don’t become what we know. Education is a process of love formation. When you go to a school, it should offer you new things to love.”Tagged: character, Love, Becoming, The Person You'll Become
“The sensitive person understands that each person's ordeal is unique and should not be compared to anyone else's. Next, they do the practical things: making lunch, dusting the room, washing the towels. They don't try to minimize what is going on. They don't attempt to reassure with false, saccharine…”Tagged: How To Think, Philosophy, character, Thought Leading
“Success leads to the greatest failure, which is pride. Failure leads to the greatest success, which is humility and learning.”Tagged: character, Principle, Philosophy, Thinking, Thought
“Love is the strongest kind of army because it generates no resistance.”Tagged: Philosophy, character, Thinking, Thought
“Self-respect is not the same as self-confidence or self-esteem. Self-respect is not based on IQ or any of the mental or physical gifts that help get you into a competitive college. It is not comparative. It is not earned by being better than other people at something. It is earned by being better…”Tagged: Philosophy, How To Think, character, Self-Development