104 Quotes by Neel Burton

Achievement, I find, has as much to do with what we don't do as what we do do.

Music is the school and the hospital of the emotions.

The highest purpose of education is to unlearn what we once took for granted, to replace certainty with subtlety, prejudice with compassion, and destiny with possibility.

Wonder begets culture, which begets yet more wonder, and the end of wonder is wisdom, which is the state of perpetual wonder.

There are a great number of ego defenses, and the combinations and circumstances in which we use them reflect on our personality. Indeed, one could go so far as to argue that the self is nothing but the sum of its ego defenses, which are constantly shaping, upholding, protecting, and repairing it.The self is like a cracked mask that is in constant need of being pieced together. But behind the mask there is nobody at home.

Perhaps the only difference between the comedian, the psychologist, and the philosopher is that you can’t pretend to be a comedian.

Of all funny things, truth is the funniest.

Now, it so happens that our culture—or lack of it, for our culture is in a state of flux and crisis—places a high value on materialism, and, by extension, greed. Our culture’s emphasis on greed is such that people have become immune to satisfaction. Having acquired one thing, they are immediately ready to desire the next thing that might suggest itself. Today, the object of desire is no longer satisfaction, but desire itself.

If you want to be heard, become a dentist.