Rob

“Why do we care more about people who seem like us? In Chapter 10, I wrote that evil does its work from a distance. Distance lets us rant at strangers on the internet. Distance helps soldiers bypass their aversion to violence. And distance has enabled the most horrifying crimes in history, from slavery to the Holocaust. But choose the path of compassion and you realise how little separates you from that stranger. Compassion takes you beyond yourself, until those near and dear are no more or less significant than the rest of the world. Why else did the Buddha abandon his family? Why else would Jesus have instructed his disciples to leave behind their fathers and mothers, their wives and children, their brothers and sisters?”
― Rutger Bregman, Humankind: A Hopeful History

“We have so many rehearsed stories about who we are,” says Lennon. “And the true story that we told about ourselves six months ago may no longer be true today. We need one another to help us reexamine the words coming out of our mouth, to reflect on what is happening with our bodies and spirits.”
― Casper ter Kuile, The Power of Ritual: Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices

“They all blur together these days—the smell of manure and buttered popcorn, urine and cotton candy, hay and innocence. He wrings his hands again and then stands up. Bob hobbles over to the corner, goosebumps rippling across his flesh, and he begins to wash off the cloud of white, his costume of the day, the way he is able to meander through any festive occasion with hardly a worry—balloons in hand, a smile on his face, knots twisting in his gut, blood filling his shoes.”
― Richard Thomas

“Dictators and despots, governors and generals–they all too often resort to brute force to prevent scenarios that exist only in their own heads, on the assumption that the average Joe is ruled by self-interest, just like them.”
― Rutger Bregman, Humankind: A Hopeful History