Jonathan Haidt Quotes

Quotes about:

• Suppose you read about a pill that you could take once a day to reduce anxiety and increase your contentment. Would you take it? Suppose further that the pill has a great variety of side effects, all of them good: increased self-esteem, empathy, and trust; it even improves memory. Suppose, finally, that the pill is all natural and costs nothing. Now would you take it? The pill exists. It is meditation.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Success, Trust, Sympathy

  Jonathan Haidt (2006). “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom”, p.35, Basic Books

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• Happiness doesn't come from getting what you want. It doesn't come from within, either. Happiness comes from *between*--from finding the right relationship between yourself and others, between yourself and your work, and between yourself and something larger than yourself.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Getting What You Want, Want, What You Want

  25 Copy quote

• You can’t make a dog happy by forcibly wagging its tail. And you can’t change people’s minds by utterly refuting their arguments.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Dog, People, Mind

  Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.48, Vintage

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• The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Mind, Stories, Logic

  Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.281, Vintage

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• The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.

  Jonathan Haidt

  People, Mind, Religion And Politics

  "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion". Book by Jonathan Haidt, 2012.

  48 Copy quote

• Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Team, Fighting, Fate

  Jonathan Haidt (2016). “Can't We All Disagree More Constructively?: from The Righteous Mind”, p.46, Vintage

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• Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Intuition, Firsts, Strategic

  Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.70, Vintage

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• Human rationality depends critically on sophisticated emotionality. It is only because our emotional brain works so well that our reasoning can work at all.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Emotional, Brain, Sophisticated

  Jonathan Haidt (2006). “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom”, p.13, Basic Books

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• Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into teams … but thereby makes us go blind to objective reality.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Team, Reality, Morality

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• Love and work are crucial for human happiness because, when done well, they draw us out of ourselves and into connection with people and projects beyond ourselves. Happiness comes from getting these connections right.

  Jonathan Haidt

  People, Connections, Done

  Jonathan Haidt (2006). “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom”, p.223, Basic Books

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• The most powerful force ever known on this planet is human cooperation - a force for construction and destruction.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Motivation, Powerful, Inspiration

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• But the most important lesson I have learned in my twenty years or research on morality is that nearly all people are morally motivated. Selfishness is a powerful force, particularly in the decisions of individuals, but whenever groups of people come together to make a sustained effort to change the world, you can bet that they are pursuing a vision of virtue, justice, or sacredness.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Powerful, Selfish, Years

  Jonathan Haidt (2006). “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom”, p.242, Basic Books

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• If you have high IQ, you're really good at finding post-hoc arguments to support your feelings of truthiness.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Support, Feelings, Argument

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• The mind is divided, like a rider on an elephant, and the rider’s job is to serve the elephant. The rider is our conscious reasoning-the stream of words and images of which we are fully aware. The elephant is the other 99 percent of mental processes-the ones that occur outside of awareness but that actually govern most of our behavior.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Jobs, Elephants, Mind

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• Anyone who values truth should stop worshipping reason.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Reason, Should, Values

  Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.89, Vintage

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• Empathy is an antidote to righteousness, although it's very difficult to empathize across a moral divide

  Jonathan Haidt

  Empathy, Moral, Righteousness

  Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.49, Vintage

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• When you hear someone criticize a policy on the other side, thats fine. But when you start hearing motive-mongering and demonization, stand up to it just as you would if it were something that was racist or sexist. If we avoid the demonization, disagreements can be positive.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Being Positive, Racist, Hearing

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• Human thinking depends on metaphor. We understand new and complex things in relation to the things we already know... once you pick a metaphor it will guide your thinking.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Thinking, Metaphor, Guides

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• Sacredness binds people together, and then blinds them to the arbitrariness of the practice.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Practice, People, Together

  Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.257, Vintage

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• Scandal is great entertainment because it allows people to feel contempt, a moral emotion that gives feelings of moral superiority while asking nothing in return. With contempt you don't need to right the wrong (as with anger) or flee the scene (as with fear or disgust). And the best of all, contempt is made to share. Stories about the moral failings of others are among the most common kinds of gossip, they are a stable of talk radio, and they offer a ready way for people to show that they share a common moral orientation.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Gossip, People, Giving

  Jonathan Haidt (2006). “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom”, p.60, Basic Books

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• Understanding the simple fact that morality differs around the world, and even within societies, is the first step toward understanding your righteous mind.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Simple, Understanding, Mind

  Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.4, Vintage

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• In accounts of men in battle, there is an incredible adrenaline rush from group-versus-group conflict. The fervor and passion of partisans is clearly rewarding; and if it's rewarding, it involves dopamine; and if it involves dopamine, then it is potentially addictive.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Passion, Men, Battle

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• Liberals and conservatives are opponents in the most literal sense, each using the myth of pure evil to demonize the other side and unite there own.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Evil, Politics, Opponents

  Jonathan Haidt (2006). “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom”, p.242, Basic Books

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• If I have a mission in life, it is to convince people that everyone is morally motivated - everyone except for psychopaths.

  Jonathan Haidt

  People, Motivated, Psychopath

  Interview with Tamler Sommers, www.believermag.com. August 2005.

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• While the political right may moralize sex, the political left is doing it with food. Food is becoming extremely moralized nowadays, and a lot of it is ideas about purity, about what you're willing to touch, or put into your body.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Sex, Motivation, Inspiration

  4 Copy quote

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