I don’t believe that prayers actually change God’s mind – if there is a God – but I liked praying for people in need. It was like moral weightlifting. I tend to be self-obsessed, and it was nice to get out of my brain once in a while.
A. J. JACOBSI know that you should always say yes to adventures or you’ll lead a very dull life.
More A. J. Jacobs Quotes
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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’m addicted to self-improvement. The thing is, there’s so damn much about myself to improve.
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The best we can do, to paraphrase Pollan, is to eat whole foods, mostly plants, and not too much.
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A 2002 Oxford study showed counting sheep actually delays the onset of sleep. It’s just too dull to stop us from worrying about jobs and spouses.
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Sometimes miracles occur only when you jump in.
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Paintings! They’re like TV, but they don’t move.
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There’s a beauty to forgiveness, especially forgiveness that goes beyond rationality. Unconditional love is an illogical notion, but such a great & powerful one
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Very few people changed the world by sitting on their couch.
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I thought religion would eventually wither away and we’d all be worshiping at the altar of science.
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I was very good at sitting. But I just read so much research about how horrible sitting is for you. It’s like, it’s really bad. It’s like Paula-Deen-glazed-bacon-doughnut bad. So I now move around as much as possible.
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One of the interesting things to me is that God grows throughout the Old Testament. He evolves, sort of matures, and becomes kinder.
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I am officially Jewish, but I’m Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant.
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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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I prefer the earlier birth control techniques, which ranged from the delicious (using honey as a spermicide) to the aerobic (jumping backward seven times after coitus).
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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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I know that you should always say yes to adventures or you’ll lead a very dull life.
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Behavior shapes emotions.
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I’ve never before been so aware of the thousands of little good things, the thousands of things that go right every day.
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Jealousy is a useless, time-wasting emotion that’s eating me alive.
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Its sort of my job to feel good.
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I found there were things about religion that I really loved; things like the sense of gratefulness that it brings.
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It comes back to the old question: How can the Bible be so wise in some places and so barbaric in others? And why should we put any faith in a book that includes such brutality?
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I thought religion would make me live with my head in the clouds, but as often as not, it grounds me in this world.
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My immune system has always been overly welcoming of germs. It’s far too polite, the biological equivalent of a southern hostess inviting y’all nice microbes to stay awhile and have some artichoke dip.
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In trying to avoid one sin I’ve committed another.
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