63 Quotes by William Deresiewicz

[...] art instills the fundamental moral lesson: That you aren't the center of the universe. That others weren't created for your benefit. That they are just as real as you, with equal claimes to dignity and understanding.

I can tell you right now where you're going to end up: somewhere in the middle, with the rest of us. Does it really matter exactly where? People get to places like Yale and think that they've "arrived," only to discover that there are still other places to arrive at, and other places after that, and so on and so forth in an infinite recession, like the vista in a double mirror.

We can start all the organic farms we want, but we can't stop congress from declaring pizza sauce a vegetable.

We inherited a strong and flourishing country, and instead of making the investments - that is, the sacrifices - to maintain it, we chose to suck it dry and stick our children with the bill. If you want to see who is to blame for student debt, just look in the mirror. And if parents find themselves supporting kids beyond their college years, that is only, in the aggregate, a form of compensatory justice: the intergenerational transfer of wealth that should have been effected through taxation.

Status is a funny thing. Money gets you stuff, at least. Status doesn't get you much except the knowledge that you have it. And while money may not make you happy, it is easy to imagine someone who decides they have enough. With status, you can never have enough. It is comparative and competitive, by its very nature. It doesn't just not make you happy: it actively makes you unhappy. You want to make it to the top? There is no top. However high you climb, there is always somebody above you.

You won’t be able to recognize the things you really care about until you have released your grip on all the things that you’ve been taught to care about.

Reflection, again, should complement action, not gaze at its navel.

The Bible doesn’t say that money is the root of all evil; it says that love of money is.

If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts.