Jessiah

“The people who wrote and edited the Bible, for example, weren’t scientists. They couldn’t have been scientists, even if they had wanted to be. The viewpoints, methods and practices of science hadn’t been formulated when the Bible was written. Religion is instead about proper behaviour. It’s about what Plato called “the Good.” A genuine religious acolyte isn’t trying to formulate accurate ideas about the objective nature of the world (although he may be trying to do that too). He’s striving, instead, to be a “good person.” It may be the case that to him “good” means nothing but “obedient”—even blindly obedient. Hence the classic liberal Western enlightenment objection to religious belief: obedience is not enough. But it’s at least a start (and we have forgotten this): You cannot aim yourself at anything if you are completely undisciplined and untutored.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“In life man commits himself and draws his own portrait, outside of which there is nothing. No doubt this thought may seem harsh to someone who has not made a success of his life. But on the other hand, it helps people to understand that reality alone counts, and that dreams, expectations and hopes only serve to define a man as a broken dream, aborted hopes, and futile expectations.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism

“A man's at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it. You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

“Only a man exceedingly proud and vain," Dumbledore said quietly, as he turned back to the Floo roaring up again with green flames, "would believe that his heir should be like himself, rather than like who he wished that he could be.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality