“We like to pretend that our generous impulses come naturally. But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first. It's the reason... we have to get burned before we understand the power of fire; the reason our most meaningful relationships are so often those that continued beyond the very juncture at which they came the closest to ending.”

“But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first.”

“And when someone suggests you believe in a proposition, you must first examine it to see whether it is acceptable, because our reason was created by God, and whatever pleases our reason can but please divine reason, of which, for that matter, we know only what we infer from the processes of our own reason by analogy and often by negation.”

“we often envy our own abilities to escape -- aseven in daydreams we find reason for an end." from Human Nature”

“Often what keeps us stuck and continually doing penance is the very feeling that we must pay for lack of action. We become caught in a circle of blame, condemn ourselves, feel hopeless, and feed the fire—or slow burn—by reciting like a mantra our history of inertia and self-judged wrong choices. Well, let's break that dead-end cycle of waste and regret.”

“We all serve the illusion from time to time, but when we are able to see through it, we become open to reality. Then and only then can we understand and know our true selves and our purpose in life.”