Anyone who values truth should stop worshipping reason.

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.

What set us apart from most or all of the other hominid species was our ultrasociality, our ability to be highly cooperative, even with strangers, people who are not at all related to us.

Trying to run Congress without human relationships is like trying to run a car without motor oil. Should we be surprised when the whole thing freezes up?

I think moral philosophy is speculation on how we ought to live together done by people who have very little clue how people work. So I think most moral philosophy is disconnected from the species that we happen to be. In fact, they like it that way. Many moral philosophers insist that morality grows out of our rationality, that it applies to any rational being anywhere in the universe, and that it is not based on contingent or coincidental facts about our evolution.

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

People can believe pretty much whatever they want to believe about moral and political issues, as long as some other people near them believe it, so you have to focus on indirect methods to change what people want to believe.