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Kindle Notes & Highlights
One of the greatest legacies a person can leave is a moral ecology—a system of belief and behavior that lives on after they die.
there comes a time in many careers when people face a choice between helping a small number of people a lot or helping a large number of people a little.
we are defined by these moments of obligation, which are “usually caused by a sense of outrage about some injustice, wrong-doing or unfairness we see in society.” But he goes on to argue that “you should ignore 99% of these moments of obligation,” no matter how guilty it makes you feel. The world is full of problems, but very few are the problems you are meant to address.
A job is a way of making a living, but work is a particular way of being needed, of fulfilling the responsibility that life has placed before you.
All vocational work, no matter how deeply it touches you, involves those moments when you are confronted by the laborious task. Sometimes, if you are going to be a professional, you just have to dig the damn ditch.
“Self-discipline is a form of freedom,” he writes. “Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from expectations and the demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear—and doubt.”
we also need to learn the virtue of staying put and staying true, of choosing again what we chose before.
A beautiful marriage is not dramatic. It is hard to depict in novel and song because the acts that define it are so small, constant, and particular.
George Washington had a rather interesting life, but still concluded, “I have always considered marriage as the most interesting event of one’s life, the foundation of happiness or misery.”
People in long, happy marriages have won the lottery of life. They are the happy ones, the blessed ones.
If you go into marriage seeking self-actualization, you will always feel frustrated because marriage, and especially parenting, will constantly be dragging you away from the goals of self.
People talk about “settling down.” But, in fact, marriage is a hopeful revolution two people undertake together, without any real idea of what’s on the other side.
Laughter is the reward for shared understanding.
Seeing well is not natural. It is an act of humility. It means getting your own self—your own needs and wishes—out of the way, so that you can see the thing you’re looking at as itself, and not just as a mirror of your own interests.
The hard part of intellectual life is separating what is true from what will get you liked.
be watchful over what you love, because you become what you desire.
Worship your intellect, being seen as smart—you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.
When I go back and think about our classroom discussions, the topics of our papers, and the rambling dining hall and bar-stool conversations, they were really about trying to figure out what was worth wanting, what desire was better than the others, what longings were to be embraced and which ones were to be subordinated or renounced.
