Lying - by Sam Harris
As it was in Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, and Othello, so it is in life. Most forms of private vice and public evil are kindled and sustained by lies. Acts of adultery and other personal betrayals, financial fraud, government corruption—even murder and genocide—generally require an additional moral defect: a willingness to lie.
In Lying, bestselling author and neuroscientist Sam Harris argues that we can radically simplify our lives and improve society by merely telling the truth in situations where others often lie. He focuses on “white” lies—those lies we tell for the purpose of sparing people discomfort—for these are the lies that most often tempt us. And they tend to be the only lies that good people tell while imagining that they are being good in the process.
- Seneca Quote
From Moral letters to Lucilius/Letter 44 (Kindle): Suppose, then, that you were not that Roman knight, but a freedman, you might nevertheless by your own efforts come to be the only free man amid a throng of gentlemen. "How?" you ask. Simply by distinguishing...
- Baltasar Gracián Quote
"One of life’s great lessons lies in knowing how to refuse, and it is even more important to refuse yourself, both to business and to others. There are certain inessential activities—moths of precious time—and it is worse to busy yourself with the...
- Breaking Bad - By Michael Lewitt
The AMC television series Breaking Badtells the story of Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who has a son with cerebral palsy, an unwanted daughter on the way, a lousy second job at a car wash, and then learns that he is going to die of cancer...
- Ben Franklin Quotes
A little Ben Franklin to celebrate the 4th. “A good Example is the best Sermon.” “Wise Men learn by others’ harms; Fools by their own.” “Laziness travels so slowly that Poverty soon overtakes him.” “Life with Fools consists in Drinking;...
- Howard Marks Quote (2001)
From his October 2001 Memo “What Lies Ahead?”: I have no interest in being a pessimist or a bear, and I don't like to think of myself that way. I just may be more impressed by the unknowability of the future than most people. When I reflect on...