Carlos Salinas > Carlos's Quotes

“You are by no means only what you already know. You are also all that which you could know, if you only would. Thus, you should never sacrifice what you could be for what you are. You should never give up the better that resides within for the security you already have—and certainly not when you have already caught a glimpse, an undeniable glimpse, of something beyond.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“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.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“And you must be cautious, because making your life better means adopting a lot of responsibility, and that takes more effort and care than living stupidly in pain and remaining arrogant, deceitful and resentful.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“You must determine where you are going, so that you can bargain for yourself, so that you don’t end up resentful, vengeful and cruel. You have to articulate your own principles, so that you can defend yourself against others’ taking inappropriate advantage of you, and so that you are secure and safe while you work and play. You must discipline yourself carefully. You must keep the promises you make to yourself, and reward yourself, so that you can trust and motivate yourself. You need to determine how to act toward yourself so that you are most likely to become and to stay a good person. It would be good to make the world a better place.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“We deserve some respect. You deserve some respect. You are important to other people, as much as to yourself. You have some vital role to play in the unfolding destiny of the world. You are, therefore, morally obliged to take care of yourself. You should take care of, help and be good to yourself the same way you would take care of, help and be good to someone you loved and valued. You may therefore have to conduct yourself habitually in a manner that allows you some respect for your own Being—and fair enough. But every person is deeply flawed. Everyone falls short of the glory of God. If that stark fact meant, however, that we had no responsibility to care, for ourselves as much as others, everyone would be brutally punished all the time. That would not be good. That would make the shortcomings of the world, which can make everyone who thinks honestly question the very propriety of the world, worse in every way. That simply cannot be the proper path forward.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“If you will not reveal yourself to others, you cannot reveal yourself to yourself. That does not only mean that you suppress who you are, although it also means that. It means that so much of what you could be will never be forced by necessity to come forward.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“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. Strengthen the individual. Start with yourself. Take care with yourself. Define who you are. Refine your personality. Choose your destination and articulate your Being. As the great nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche so brilliantly noted, “He whose life has a why can bear almost any how.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“We must each adopt as much responsibility as possible for individual life, society and the world. We must each tell the truth and repair what is in disrepair and break down and recreate what is old and outdated. It is in this manner that we can and must reduce the suffering that poisons the world. It’s asking a lot. It’s asking for everything.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“You must determine where you are going in your life, because you cannot get there unless you move in that direction. Random wandering will not move you forward. It will instead disappoint and frustrate you and make you anxious and unhappy and hard to get along with (and then resentful, and then vengeful, and then worse).”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“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.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“When you decide to learn about your faults, so that they can be rectified, you open a line of communication with the source of all revelatory thought. Maybe that’s the same thing as consulting your conscience. Maybe that’s the same thing, in some manner, as a discussion with God.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“To suffer terribly and to know yourself as the cause: that is Hell.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“We experience much of our positive emotion in relation to goals. We are not happy, technically speaking, unless we see ourselves progressing—and the very idea of progression implies value. Worse yet is the fact that the meaning of life without positive value is not simply neutral. Because we are vulnerable and mortal, pain and anxiety are an integral part of human existence. We must have something to set against the suffering that is intrinsic to Being. We must have the meaning inherent in a profound system of value or the horror of existence rapidly becomes paramount. Then, nihilism beckons, with its hopelessness and despair.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“Perhaps you are overvaluing what you don’t have and undervaluing what you do.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“There’s a worthy and noble ambition: strength in the face of adversity. That is very different from the wish for a life free of trouble.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“Stop saying those things that make you weak and ashamed. Say only those things that make you strong. Do only those things that you could speak of with honour.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“When you dare aspire upward, you reveal the inadequacy of the present and the promise of the future. Then you disturb others, in the depths of their souls, where they understand that their cynicism and immobility are unjustifiable. You play Abel to their Cain.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“Your inaction, inertia and cynicism removes from the world that part of you that could learn to quell suffering and make peace.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“We must each adopt as much responsibility as possible for individual life, society and the world. We must each tell the truth and repair what is in disrepair and break down and recreate what is old and outdated. It is in this manner that we can and must reduce the suffering that poisons the world. It’s asking a lot.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“you should not overlook the guidelines of your culture. Life is short, and you don’t have time to figure everything out on your own. The wisdom of the past was hard-earned, and your dead ancestors may have something useful to tell you).”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“People organize their brains with conversation. If they don't have anyone to tell their story to, they lose their minds. Like hoarders, they cannot unclutter themselves.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“It’s easier to put off until tomorrow what needs to be done today, and drown the upcoming months and years in today’s cheap pleasures. As the infamous father of the Simpson clan puts it, immediately prior to downing a jar of mayonnaise and vodka, “That’s a problem for Future Homer. Man, I don’t envy that guy!”66”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“It is my firm belief that the best way to fix the world—a handyman’s dream, if ever there was one—is to fix yourself,”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“If we lived in Truth; if we spoke the Truth - then we could walk with God once again, and respect ourselves, and others, and the world. Then we might treat ourselves like people we cared for. We might strive to set the world straight. We might orient it toward Heaven, where we would want people we cared for to dwell, instead of Hell, where our resentment and hatred would eternally sentence everyone.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, Jordan B. Peterson: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“And even if it were possible to permanently banish everything threatening—everything dangerous (and, therefore, everything challenging and interesting), that would mean only that another danger would emerge: that of permanent human infantilism and absolute uselessness. How could the nature of man ever reach its full potential without challenge and danger? How dull and contemptible would we become if there was no longer reason to pay attention? Maybe God thought His new creation would be able to handle the serpent, and considered its presence the lesser of two evils.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“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.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“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.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“Worthlessness is the default condition.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“To straddle that fundamental duality is to be balanced: to have one foot firmly planted in order and security, and the other in chaos, possibility, growth and adventure. When life suddenly reveals itself as intense, gripping and meaningful; when time passes and you’re so engrossed in what you’re doing you don’t notice—it is there and then that you are located precisely on the border between order and chaos.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos