Awe is the emotion of self-transcendence.

If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased, and illogical people become when they disagree with you.

And it’s not just that ‘we all need somebody to lean on’; recent work on giving support shows that caring for others is often more beneficial than is receiving help. . . . We need the give and the take, we need to belong. An ideology of extreme personal freedom can be dangerous because it encourages people to leave homes, jobs, cities and marriages in search of personal and professional fulfillment, thereby breaking the relationships that were probably their best hope for such fulfillment.

Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into teams … but thereby makes us go blind to objective reality.

Many species reciprocate, but only humans gossip, and much of what we gossip about is the vale of other people as partners for reciprocal relationships.

Psychotherapy can help some people, especially people who are neurotic, who are always making problems for themselves. We are like a rider on an elephant. We can steer the elephant, and if he's not busy, he'll go where we want, but if he has other desires, he'll go where he wants. They need to get a better relationship between the rider and the elephant. In part, you get it just from watching yourself stumble around in life, make mistakes, then read a little psychology and stop blaming yourself. Realize that I am flawed. I am complicated. I am divided, and I'm doing the best I can.

Love and work are to people what water and sunshine are to plants.