Sublime

In his great work The Characters, Theophrastus sketched thirty types—from the penurious and the garrulous to the flatterer and the shamelessly greedy—and illustrated his character portraits with an astonishing level of detail.

We are our own auditors.

Those new disciplines are neuroscience, the study of how the brain supports mental processes; developmental psychopathology, the study of the impact of adverse experiences on the development of mind and brain; and interpersonal neurobiology, the study of how our behavior influences the emotions, biology, and mind-sets of those around us.

theory of mind allows us to lie convincingly.

“I’ve got a list of personality traits written down here that define psychopathy,” I said, pointing at my pocket. “Who the hell are the people who make the list?” said Al. “What are their names? I bet I never heard of them!”