Christopher Ryan Quotes

Why would so many risk their reputations, families, careers—even presidential legacies—for something that runs against human nature? Were monogamy an ancient, evolved trait characteristic of our species, as the standard narrative insists, these ubiquitous transgressions would be infrequent and such horrible enforcement unnecessary. No creature needs to be threatened with death to act in accord with its own nature.

Could it be that the atomic isolation of the husband and wife nucleus with an orbiting child or two is in fact a culturally imposed aberration for our species? As ill-suited to our evolved tendencies as corsets, chastity belts, and suits of armor? ...a distorted and distorting family structure inappropriate for our species?

Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilization. Socrates made the same point 2,400 years ago: "He is richest who is content with least, for contentment is the wealth of nature.

But with trust we can strive to accept even what we cannot understand.

You can slow time down by traveling. That month from Shringar to the Taj Mahal is like a year in my life currently. Really, time is a measure of change, in a vacuum time doesn't exist because nothing's changing. If you can pack your life full of interesting changes you stretch it out. So if you want to live longer, have a really interesting life.

One wonders, in fact, why marriage is a legal issue at all - apart from its relevance to immigration and property laws. Why would something so integral to human nature require such vigilant legal protection?

Our sense of the full range of human nature, like our diet, has been steadily reduced. No matter how nourishing it might be, anything wild gets pulled - though as we'll see, some of the weeds growing in us have roots reaching deep into our shared past. Pull them if you want, but they'll just keep coming back again and again.

If you’re unhappy at the amount of sexual opportunity in your life, don’t blame the women. Instead, make sure they have equal access to power, wealth, and status. Then watch what happens.

No creature needs to be threatened with death to act in accord with its own nature