Market forces have no intrinsically moral direction, which is why, before he wrote The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Ethics should precede economics. But it doesn't have to. . . . We know this because we've seen the results of capitalism without conscience: the pollution of the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat; the endangerment of workers; and the sale of dangerous products - from cars to toys to drugs. All in pursuit of ever-greater profits.

It’s not ‘What do I want to do?’, it’s ‘What kind of life do I want to have?’

I had dinner recently with a guy who bragged that he had only gotten four hours of sleep that night. I didn't say it, but I thought to myself 'If you had gotten five, this dinner would have been a lot more interesting'

It is the Fourth Instinct (the spirit - RJ) that urges us to exceed ourselves ... by awakening our intuitive selves, and striving to be all that we were intended to be. It takes us beyond self-centeredness and enables us to resist the combined forces of indifference and meaninglessness. It awakens us to a sense of responsibility for those most in need of our society as well as for that world that future generations will inherit.

The Republican Party seems unwilling and unable to offer solutions to the crises we are facing, other than pitching the same failed ideas that got us into the mess we are in the first place.

Not only is it harder to be a man, it is also harder to become one.

People discover that by helping others, even when they themselves are suffering, they end up improving their own lives.