“I use the word repugnance to describe transactions that some people would like to engage in, that other people would not like them to; it's often hard to pin-down what harm the transaction does to anyone else.”— Alvin E. Roth
The quote archive
A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.
We come from mammals, we are mammals… we're just mammals that wear clothes. We're destimulated – we don't feel the cold, the heat, everything in our environment – even though our physiology is built for it. We've allowed them to lose this fitness, to lose their conditioning – and so our hearts compensate.
— Wim HofExtreme athlete known for ice exposure & breathing technique methods
Nobody knows how far we can go as humans and so I listened only to myself and my body and pushed it to go beyond perceived limitations, and guess what – outside that boundary is a whole new life where you really start to live.
— David GogginsUltramarathon Runner, Navy SEAL, & Motivational Speaker
To overcome extreme obstacles, to do the impossible, you have to create another human being inside yourself. I had to create an image of how I wanted to look, how I wanted to act, how I wanted to believe, how hard I wanted to push. I trained that image in my mind, and then I had to become an artist to create it.
— David GogginsUltramarathon Runner, Navy SEAL, & Motivational Speaker
Very few people know how the bottom feels, but I do. It's like quicksand. It grabs you, sucks you under and won't let go. When life is like that it's easy to drift and continue to make the same comfortable choices that are killing you, over and over again.
— David GogginsUltramarathon Runner, Navy SEAL, & Motivational Speaker
We have made money, capital, materialism and consumption into our God, it's a disease – you could call it affluenza. It is perhaps because of this context that humanity has lost its way, and the consideration of human rights has been subordinated to the interests of a handful of powerful people who sit at the top of the pyramid.
— Kumi NaidooEnvironmental activist & former Executive Director of Greenpeace International
Technology should be leveraged to enhance the physical and human experience, not replace it.
— José NevesFounder and CEO of Farfetch, luxury fashion e-commerce platform
I flew home with this profound sense of the simultaneity of human suffering; I've never been able to get over that sense that even as I'm talking to you right now, there are people who are living unbearable lives.
— Richard CurtisBritish Film Director & Screenwriter of Romantic Comedies
It's always been the job of comedy to point out hypocrisies and problems – it's a long historical tradition that goes all the way back to Aristotle and Jonathan Swift.
— Richard CurtisBritish Film Director & Screenwriter of Romantic Comedies
The key component of bravery is integrity. What I saw growing up was the reality that people would often give their integrity to make life more comfortable in the short term; but guess what, that leads to your integrity being chipped away until you are left with nothing.
— Rose McGowanActress & #MeToo activist who exposed Harvey Weinstein harassment
Individuality is my biggest fight, not #MeToo. People need to realise their own power, their own freedom, and their own ability to be better.
— Rose McGowanActress & #MeToo activist who exposed Harvey Weinstein harassment
In postmodernism, there are no absolute truths; everything is relative, of course other than the one absolute truth that there are no absolute truths. This is a form of intellectual terrorism, nihilism.
— Gad SaadEvolutionary Psychologist & Author Known for Consumer Behavior Research
I argue that the ecosystem where idea pathogens originate from is the university; it takes intellectuals to come up with some of the most moronic ideas possible.
— Gad SaadEvolutionary Psychologist & Author Known for Consumer Behavior Research
Humans can be parasitized by actual brain worms, but also by idea pathogens that cause them to behave in profoundly maladaptive ways.
— Gad SaadEvolutionary Psychologist & Author Known for Consumer Behavior Research
I can't advertise chewing gum to my children because it's unethical, but I can feed them all sorts of narratives that will have a profound impact on their personal trajectories. It's quite an extraordinarily hypocritical position.
— Gad SaadEvolutionary Psychologist & Author Known for Consumer Behavior Research
The primacy of overtly scientific approaches to understanding life has come at a tremendous cost; in some ways we see the world in shades of grey rather than in full colour.
— Dr. Jordan B. PetersonClinical Psychologist, Author of "12 Rules for Life," Public Intellectual
We are meaning driven – it's not enough for us to what there is, we need to know why.
— Dr. Jordan B. PetersonClinical Psychologist, Author of "12 Rules for Life," Public Intellectual