After a while, if you’re committed, you start to believe in the things in which you’re praying. It’s just cognitive dissonance. You can’t live a completely religious life and not start to have it sink in.
A. J. JACOBSI find placebos uplifting and exhilarating. It means that taking action–no matter what the action is–might help you feel better.
More A. J. Jacobs Quotes
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I grew up in a very secular home with no religion at all, so I was starting from zero.
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Very few people changed the world by sitting on their couch.
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Unconditional love is an illogical notion, but such a great and powerful one.
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Behavior shapes emotions.
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When I was with the serpent-handlers in Tennessee, it was the most bizarre method of worship I could think of. Yet when you sit with these people, you can kind of see how it makes sense.
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After decimating several vegetables, I decide juicing is my favorite form of food preparation. There’s something perversely appealing about subjecting an innocent plant to that much violence.
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The Bible talks a lot about thankfulness, and I’m more thankful than I ever was. I try to concentrate on the hundreds of things that go right in a day, instead of the three or four that go wrong.
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Since I was relatively new to the Bible, I was surprised by the Old Testament God. He’s wrathful, but at other times, He’s incredibly compassionate. He’s not a one-dimensional figure at all.
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I have little shame, no dignity – all in the name of a better cause.
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Sometimes miracles occur only when you jump in.
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Scrabble – The game is available in Braille. That’s a nice fact. This makes me feel better about humanity for some reason. I can’t really explain why.
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If my former self and my current self met for coffee, they’d get along OK, but they’d both probably walk out of the Starbucks shaking their heads and saying to themselves, “That guy is kinda delusional.”
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Giulia Melucci has written a wonderfully funny and moving book. It’s like Eat, Pray, Love, with recipes.
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I know that knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing – but they do live in the same neighborhood. I know once again, firsthand, the joy of learning.
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I’m addicted to self-improvement. The thing is, there’s so damn much about myself to improve.
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