“Everyone seems to know this. We are universally tormented by our consciences for what we know we should have done yet did not do. We are tormented equally by what we did but know we should not have done. Is this not a universal experience? Can anyone escape the pangs of conscience at four o’clock in the morning after acting immorally or destructively, or failing to act when action was necessary? And what is the source for that inescapable conscience? If we were the source of our own values and masters of our own houses, then we could act or fail to act as we choose and not suffer the pangs of regret, sorrow, and shame. But I have never met anyone who could manage that. Even the most psychopathic of people seemed motivated at least to mask their malfeasance with a layer of lies (with the depth of that layer precisely proportionate to the severity of the impropriety in question). Even the most malevolent, it appears, must find justification for his or her evil.”
― Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life
― Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life
“What is the moral of the story? Make yourself colorful, stand out, and the lions will take you down. And the lions are always there.”
― Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life
― Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life
“You should be careful, therefore, to live your life fully, and marriage and children and grandchildren, and all the trouble and heartbreak that accompanies all of that, is much of what life has to offer. Miss it at your great peril.”
― Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life
― Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life
“When you are tightly boxed in or cornered—all too often by your own stubborn and fixed adherence to some unconsciously worshipped assumptions—all there is to help you is what you have not yet learned.”
― Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life
― Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life
“It may well be, therefore, that the true meaning of life is not to be found in what is objective, but in what is subjective (but still universal).”
― Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life
― Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life
World, Writing, Wealth
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Nikola’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Nikola’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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