“It is not clear that married people are, on average, happier than those who never married, because unhappily married people are the least happy group of all and they pull down the average.”

“The rider evolved to serve to the elephant.”

“Sports is to war as pornography is to sex.”

“Loyalty, respect for authority and some degree of sanctification create a more binding social order that places some limits on individualism and egoism.”

“But if you put individuals together in the right way, such that some individuals can use their reasoning powers to disconfirm the claims of others, and all individuals feel some common bond or shar...”

“Asking children to grow virtues hydroponically, looking only within themselves for guidance, is like asking each one to invent a personal languagea pointless and isolating task if there is no commu...”

“Labels bias our perceptions, thinking, and behavior. A label or story can either separate us from, or connect us to, nature. For our health and happiness, we must critically evaluate our labels and...”

“Mental illness" is among the most stigmatized of categories.' People are ashamed of being mentally ill. They fear disclosing their condition to their friends and confidants-and certainly to their e...”

“Prejudice plunges you into a world of fear and hate. That's no way to live.”

“Just as in the body, eye and ear develop as organs of perception, as senses for bodily processes, so does a man develop in himself soul and spiritual organs of perception through which the soul and...”

“The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.”

“An ordinary mirror is silvered at the back but the window of the night train has darkness behind the glass. My face and the faces of other travellers were now mirrored on this darkness in a success...”

“People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.”

“All good writing is persuasive writing; persuading the reader to buy what you're selling, to side with you, to believe the tales you tell.”

“Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled wit...”