12 Rules for Life Quotes. 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2018) is Jordan B. Peterson’s second book. Peterson’s self-help book seeks to provide practical and virtuous rules to live by for a wide audience and general readership. The book streamlines, simplifies, and reimagines some of the more traditionally academic topics of Peterson’s first book, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief.
Each non-fiction work aims to explain human history and human nature according to universal frameworks. 12 Rules for Life takes on the issue of coping with life’s difficulties, which the author defines as “chaos,” and establishing “order,” which makes life comfortable and familiar.
 |
| 12 Rules for Life Quotes |
12 Rules for Life Quotes
- “When you have something to say, silence is a lie.”
- “You can only find out what you actually believe (rather than what you think you believe) by watching how you act. You simply don’t know what you believe, before that. You are too complex to understand yourself.”
- “And if you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of.”
- “It took untold generations to get you where you are. A little gratitude might be in order. If you're going to insist on bending the world to your way, you better have your reasons.”
- “To suffer terribly and to know yourself as the cause: that is Hell.”
- “No tree can grow to Heaven,” adds the ever-terrifying Carl Gustav Jung, psychoanalyst extraordinaire, “unless its roots reach down to Hell.”
- “Intolerance of others’ views (no matter how ignorant or incoherent they may be) is not simply wrong; in a world where there is no right or wrong, it is worse: it is a sign you are embarrassingly unsophisticated or, possibly, dangerous.”
- “Perhaps you are overvaluing what you don’t have and undervaluing what you do.”
- “RULE 4 COMPARE YOURSELF TO WHO YOU WERE YESTERDAY, NOT TO WHO SOMEONE ELSE IS TODAY”
- “Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.”
- “Ideologies are substitutes for true knowledge, and ideologues are always dangerous when they come to power, because a simple-minded I-know-it-all approach is no match for the complexity of existence.”
- “Nietzsche said that a man’s worth was determined by how much truth he could tolerate”
- “The successful among us delay gratification. The successful among us bargain with the future.”
- “The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power. Status you can lose. You carry character with you wherever you go, and it allows you to prevail against adversity.”
- “Every bit of learning is a little death. Every bit of new information challenges a previous conception, forcing it to dissolve into chaos before it can be reborn as something better. Sometimes such deaths virtually destroy us.”
You may also like to read: 12 Rules for Life Book Summary
Top Quotes from 12 Rules for Life
- “You can only find out what you actually believe (rather than what you think you believe) by watching how you act. You simply don’t know what you believe, before that. You are too complex to understand yourself.”
- Everything you value is a product of unimaginably lengthy developmental processes, personal, cultural, biological.
- “Don’t underestimate the power of vision and direction. These are irresistible forces, able to transform what might appear to be unconquerable obstacles into traversable pathways and expanding opportunities.”
- “There’s some real utility in gratitude.”
- “When you have something to say, silence is a lie.”
- “It took untold generations to get you where you are. A little gratitude might be in order.”
- “It takes careful observation, and education, and reflection, and communication with others, just to scratch the surface of your beliefs.”
- “And if you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of.”
- “The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power. Status you can lose. You carry character with you wherever you go, and it allows you to prevail against adversity.”
- “The successful among us delay gratification. The successful among us bargain with the future.”
- “If you’re going to insist on bending the world to your way, you better have your reasons. If you’re going to stand your ground, you better have your reasons. You better have thought them through. You might otherwise be in for a very hard landing.”
- “In the West, we have been withdrawing from our tradition-, religion- and even nation-centred cultures, partly to decrease the danger of group conflict. But we are increasingly falling prey to the desperation of meaninglessness, and that is no improvement at all.”
- “RULE 4: Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today”
- “Ideologies are substitutes for true knowledge, and ideologues are always dangerous when they come to power, because a simple-minded I-know-it-all approach is no match for the complexity of existence.”
- “To suffer terribly and to know yourself as the cause: that is Hell.”
- “Every bit of learning is a little death. Every bit of new information challenges a previous conception, forcing it to dissolve into chaos before it can be reborn as something better. Sometimes such deaths virtually destroy us.”
- “Perhaps you are overvaluing what you don’t have and undervaluing what you do.”
- “So, listen, to yourself and to those with whom you are speaking. Your wisdom then consists not of the knowledge you already have, but the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom.”
You may also like to read