1. Everybody thinks he sees reality. Indeed, it is psychologically impossible not to.
  2. Motivation is seldom simple.
  3. We look out and see a picture of the world, and it looks as real to us when we are mistaken as when we are correct.
  4. We break the laws we find it convenient to break.
  5. Human nature in the aggregate is so variable that we might suppose any thought or act within the capability of someone someplace.
  6. With a given individual, however, the situation is reversed, and instead of being ready to accept great diversity, we expect a certain consistency in anyone's life. Indeed, if someone is given to drastic changes in personality, we tend to doubt his sanity.
  7. Everyone has an inherent logic to his life, even the insane. Sometimes this logic is not easy for us to find.
  8. Virtually everyone thinks the world would be a little better off if there were more of his type. Well, don't you?
  9. We tend to think along certain lines of thought, such as power, money, opposing the Establishment, cynical motives, noble motives, pleasure, popularity, giving, taking, keeping, love and sex among others. These channels are not mutually exclusive, of course, nor are they necessarily harmful. Nevertheless, they do tend to direct our thinking and prevent us from taking a comprehensive view of a given situation and will quite likely prove harmful.
  10. Everyone operates at his level of understanding. If someone lives by nasty and violence acts, we must say that his sights haven't been lifted high enough so that he could see a humane level for the satisfaction of his needs.
  11. Your pleasure is his displeasure. Much error in thought is engendered by the assumption that others must have more or less the same values we have.
  12. Every action is understandable. One acts as he does because given his picture of reality, his values and his level of understanding, that is the way he must act. Thus, when someone commits a seemingly incomprehensible act, the question should not be, "Why did he do that?" but rather, "What was the picture of the world he saw when he looked out on the world? What were his values? Why was that his level of operation?"
  13. Virtually any action can be worded in both a positive and negative manner.What is firmness and steadfastness for those who approve of a strong stand is stubbornness and intransigence for those who don't. A politician who allows his constituents to direct his vote is pandering to them if we don't like him, fulfilling his mandate if we do. Courtesy to a teacher can be called apple-polishing (and vice-versa), while rudeness can be termed forthrightness (and vice-versa). If one yields to entreaties, is he weak or a nice guy?
    Thus, we aren't really describing what is out there. We're describing our relation to it.
  14. There is a tendency to project our feelings onto the world and read them as reality.
  15. We react not to reality but to our view of reality.
  16. Everyone is ultimately selfish and out to get his way. This is not said in a cynical manner, and is not in any way meant to discount generosity, sacrifice and nobility of character. For surely some people act on a higher level or with a more enlightened selfishness than others, and if this is what gives them satisfaction, then this is what they will pursue. Nevertheless, every act is geared to self-interest.
  17. We don't react to the same reality in books or television programs or the world itself even where it would seem to be much the same to everyone.
  18. You pick up only as much as you pick up, in reading as in life, and this is what you talk about, not what is actually there.
  19. We are perhaps far more often than not impelled to do what we do through our values, emotions and impulses. Reason, we might suspect, is but rarely a guiding light prior to our actions. Once we have acted, however, we can go back and find good reasons for what we did. But we could have done so if we had acted quite differently, also.
  20. Proof is proof only to those who accept it. Thus it is foolish to say that anything has been proved, with all the connotations those words "prove" and "proof" carry of being established with finality for all reasonable people. One can only say something has been prove to his satisfaction, which, of course, is equivalent to saying he believes such and such.
  21. We might well suspect all allegations of one-to-one relationships in the human personality, i.e., that X in a personality means Y.
  22. We will tend to like and love those who advance our happiness and dislike those who thwart it -- naturally.
  23. Throughout history, there have been two interlaced refrains that the human race has seldom,if ever, escaped: that one's territory is the center of the universe,and that one's grou00is superior to analogous groups. The former tends to be muted with education. The latter seems to flourish as strong as ever.
  24. Those who call for unity generally mean that the coming together should be along their lines. But this is not inevitable.
  25. It is common for people to be envious of the good looks, the wealth,and the general good fortune of others. But virtually everyone is thankful he was brought up in the right religion and the most sensible political outlook. And those who have broken from early training are thankful they were given the intelligence to do so. In short, we are thankful for having been given a clearer picture of the world than most people have.
  26. There is a tendency too predicate logical and reasonable causes for whatever one sees. But if we don't know a cause, then we don't know that anything was reached by the logic we would have used, nor by means we are familiar with, nor that it was consciously willed.
  27. From a given situation or set of data, we can move in various directions with roughly equal logic. Our minds will take the path of least resistance, and this will necessarily seem the most logical or only logical direction possible.
  28. A kindness repeated becomes expected. Advantages and benefits are soon assimilated into a minimum basis for the enjoyment of life.
  29. In any pronounced change in the social order, some win, some lose.
  30. When they began building airplanes and automobiles and telephones, why didn't they just start with the sleek and efficient models of today?
  31. We commonly react to only part of a given situation. This will more or less necessarily be the part that interests us and seems the most important or only part of it.
  32. In all disagreement, we think we see better than the other guy. What else is disagreement all about, anyway?
  33. We reason from assumptions. These assumptions are often so far buried that we fail to recognize them as assumptions.
  34. In any conflict, one side is as responsible as the other that a conflict exists. We'll blame the side we feel like blaming.
  35. In advising for happiness, almost everyone will advise on the basis of what would make him happy
  36. We pay for what we gaiin in life. This is not tosuggest that the gain is never worth the payment But we pay.
  37. We select the criteria that prove us right -- naturally.
    .
  38. We often cover up sloppy thought by stopping a little too soon.
  39. What Peter says of Paul tell us more about Peter than it does about Paul.
  40. Hindsight is better than foresight. -- Common saying

  41. It is ridiculous to say that we have only one or two choices in a given situation. We have as many choices as the imagination can conjure up.

  42. Whatever social system you want for the world, you will probably see it asthe free-est and will describe it accordingly. And you will certainly describe it in noble terms.

  43. Beware of those who would liberate you. They really want you to live their way. And don't we do much the same thing?

  44. Some pretty horribble things have been done by those who claimed -- and no doubt oftenn believed -- they were doing a favor for the oject of their goodness. Thre is, however, one basic criterion for determining if we really are doing someone good: ask him.

  45. Almost any beligerentwill see thoseother people as the realcauseof a conflict, because theyhave gotten inhiis way.

  46. All categories are at the convenience of the categorizer. Beware of then reading your categories into nature.

  47. When one has formed a picture, there is a tendency to feel it is full and complete merely because there is a picture.

  48. In any large random sampling, we might start with the assumption that there will be exceptions to any general rule.

  49. In comparing one group with another, there is a near unavoidable tendency, if we are in any way involved, to compare the good qualities of one with the bad of the other.

  50. Thought, like material objects, has inertia.

  51. Any event is inevitable immediately before it happens. None are so if we go back far enough.

  52. Morality stems from the way a society lives. No society wants to be immoral in its own eyes or will continue so for long. If it won't change its ways, then it will change its philosophy. The same holds true for individuals.

  53. It's easy to tell warring people to behave when you're not yourself threatened. Such an admonition is tantamount to saying one is not emotionally involved in the outcome.

  54. Of course your system would work if everyone followed it. So would everyone else's.

  55. Two curses of mankind: (1) Identity: When we no longer identify ourselves as white, black, American, Russian, Chinese, young, old, rich, poor, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, atheist, the millennium will have been reached, for how then will we choose up sides to wage war? (2) Superiority: Why can't you just say you're beautiful without then going on to say, "Indeed, far more beautiful than that so-and-so over there"?

  56. There is no such thing as complete objectivity in a human being. Nor is it desirable.

  57. Success and failure are more often than not group ventures.

  58. Character is fate. -- Heraclitus.

  59. Virtually everyone wants good to prevail in this world -- his version of good.

  60. In any two situations and with any two people, there are bound to be some differences and some similarities. We will emphasize whichever suits our purposes.

  61. We attribute our values to God -- naturally.

  62. The human race will have taken one of its most important steps forward when people no longer take advantage of others simply because they can do so.

  63. If a person benefits from another's misfortunes, that doesn't mean he's happy about those misfortunes. Nevertheless, people will tend to protect their vested interests.

  64. We live by patterns implanted in the mind.

  65. When new catastrophes occur, we will not change our whipping boys.

  66. Loyalty and identity can go anywhere.

  67. Every system works for those who like it. It is ridiculous to say that a system works, as though it were true for all people living under it.

  68. We want our way.

  69. Thought picked up from another will almost always be reduced.

  70. Of course they laughed at Fulton. Does that mean everyone laughed at will turn out a Fulton? Of course they considered Socrates dangerous. Does that mean everyone considered dangerous will be vindicated by history?

  71. When it comes to feeling right, it doesn't matter whether we are in the overwhelming majority or the tiniest minority. In either case, we take comfort from our position -- in the former, from knowing we have a lot of company and cannot be too wacky, in the latter from knowing how far advanced beyond others we are.

  72. Everyone tries to satisfy his needs in the best way he knows or can conjure up.

  73. People commonly hope matters will get worse so that they will get better.

  74. Everyone favors an open-minded search for answers -- once his own assumptions are granted.

  75. We suppose our thought to be at dead center in much the same manner that mankind once thought the earth was at dead center of the universe. It will be one of mankind's most significant steps forward when it recognizes that the former is as ridiculous and egotistical as the latter was.

  76. Goodness appears where it appears. So does power.

  77. We reason and act from a ground of influences that are to a large extent beyond our knowledge.

  78. One man's contradiction is another man's logic.

  79. Analogies cannot prove anything since by definition they are different from the point at issue. However, they may be very useful for illustrative purposes.

  80. An offer of good is almost always ambiguous.

  81. Anyone can be provoked into defending himself if you push hard enough.

  82. We commonly arrive at the opposite of our intent.

  83. Virtually everyone wants peace -- on his own terms.

  84. You don't get upset because your neighbor is nasty. You get upset because your neighbor is nasty and you are you. Someone else might have reacted with a shrug of the shoulders.

  85. There are three basic kinds of truth: (1) the self-fulfilling prophecy, those truths that become so by the very act of saying they are so; (2) the self-destroying prophecy, those truths that are rendered untrue by the very act of saying they are so; and (3) those truths not affected by statements. (This was drawn from an article by Garett Hamlin in ETC.)

  86. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, goes the Golden Rule. But there is a higher law of morality: do unto others as they would have you do unto them.

  87. Predictions are largely meaningless.

  88. In furthering our own values, we will almost naturally (but not invariably) think we are doing the world good.

  89. The human race will almost always move in on a good deal and corrupt it.

  90. Every plan has an unwritten "if this doesn't cost too much" behind it.

  91. Every schismatic feels that his beliefs reflect the true way off the founder.

  92. We look favorably on our own thoughts -- naturally.

  93. We live, see, interpret and judge the world by a certain grid system of values, familiarity, personal temperament and anything else that affects our relation to the world. One's grid system will necessarily seem the best to him, or he wouldn't hold it long (which isn't to say he never violates it or sins by his own standards). But other grid systems might, by an objective view, be just as viable.

  94. Effect is more important than intent.

  95. The first law of human nature is not self-preservation, but protecting oneself from unhappiness. Even the suicide follows that law.

  96. Children grow up thinking their experience is the way off all children growing up. They do so, that is, up to a certain age.

  97. All self-serving statements are suspect.

  98. People will move to meet the criteria by which they are judged and rewarded -- naturally.

  99. Since 1945, has anyone wishing to discredit another not compared his antagonist to the Nazis?

  100. You can't convince an equal adult of anything much.

  101. Beware the person with a one-sentence solution to our problems.

  102. People will commonly yield a small amount of ground so as to gain a larger chunk.

  103. When laws and regulations are lightly enforced or unenforced, it is necessarily the conscientious and sensitive who bear the burden.

  104. All things are possible.

  105. We don't do a very good job of evaluating other people.

  106. Those other guys always look a lot more unified than they really are.

  107. The criminal mind is a self-absorbed mind.

  108. We relate to others with different facets of our personality, naturally.

  109. Don't we all rather feel deep down that we're a better judge of character than other people are?

  110. It isn't where we are that determines happiness so much as the direction we're going.

  111. Sensitivity to one person or group very commonly masks insensitivity to another.

  112. There is no substitute for good people.

  113. When you get done with 10 or 20 or 50 pages of detailing sexual harassment, you still need people of good will and common sense to read and apply those rules.