Sam Keen

“The root of humanly caused evil is not man's animal nature, not territorial aggression, or innate selfishness, but our need to gain self-esteem, deny our mortality, and achieve a heroic self-image. Our desire for the best is the cause of the worst.”

“The question that surrounds lovemaking is, "Did you cum?" and the unasked question beneath that is, "Am I all right?”

“The world is run largely by urban, sedentary males. The symbol of power is the chair.”

“You can know what's in your life when you know what's in your heart.”

“We come to love not by finding a perfect person but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.”

“A society in which vocation and job are separated for most people gradually creates an economy that is often devoid of spirit, one that frequently fills our pocketbooks at the cost of emptying our souls.”

“Condition a woman (or a man) to value submission above all other attitudes and you will produce a character type whose most readily expressed emotion will be sadness.”

“Neurotic identity crises come when our defense mechanisms have been too successful and we're encapsulated in the fortress we have constructed with nothing to refresh us in our solitary confinement. So we play the old movies with their stale fears and their unrealistic hopes until we become bored enough to risk disarmament and engagement.”

“Burnout is nature's way of telling you, you've been going through the motions your soul has departed; you're a zombie, a member of the walking dead, a sleepwalker. False optimism is like administrating stimulants to an exhausted nervous system.”

“The sacred is discovered in what moves and touches us, in what makes us tremble.”

“Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.”