21 Quotes by John Kaag

I try to remember the shepherd-ferryman, to eat cheese between meals, and to do my best to become rather than to obsessively seek and control.

Do my actions have the feeling of the ‘real me,’ or am I just half-asleep, play acting at the only life I have?

Terror has its uses. The questions that scare us the most are precisely the ones that deserve our full and immediate attention.

Set for yourself goals, high and noble goals, and perish in pursuit of them!

We have to live today by the truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood. – William James, “The Conception of Truth,” 1907.

Goethe was right – “Boldness has magic.” And the magic of human activity is not just in its ability to change our circumstances, to transform the surroundings in which we live. No small part of the magic has to do with the way that activity can radically alter the emotional landscape of our inner lives.

All truly great thoughts,” Nietzsche informs his reader in The Twilight of the Idols, “are conceived while walking.

Walking is among the most life-affirming of human activities. It is the way we organize space and orient ourselves to the world at large. It is the living proof that repetition – placing one foot in front of the other – can in fact allow a person to make meaningful progress.

The art of being wise,” James suggested, “was knowing what to overlook.