21 Lessons for the 21st Century

The most important thing I realized was that the deepest source of my suffering is in the patterns of my own mind.

Ultimately we should realize that we do not control our desires.

In brief, while nationalism teaches me that my nation is unique and that I have special obligations toward it, fascism says that my nation is supreme, and that I owe my nation exclusive obligations.

“Hoc est corpus!”—“This is the body!”—and the bread supposedly became the flesh of Christ. In the minds of the illiterate peasants, who did not speak Latin, “Hoc est corpus!” got garbled into “Hocus-pocus!” Thus was born the powerful spell that can transform a frog into a prince and a pumpkin into a carriage.6

Most people who go on identity quests are like children going on a treasure hunt: they find only what their parents have hidden for them in advance.

“A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.”

When a thousand people believe some made-up story for one month, that’s fake news. When a billion people believe it for a thousand years, that’s a religion,

Revolutionary knowledge rarely makes it to the center, because the center is built on existing knowledge.

The system is structured in such a way that those who make no effort to know can remain in blissful ignorance, and those who do make an effort will find it very difficult to discover the truth.