Quotes About Development

If a child has not been taught to behave properly by the age of four, it will forever be difficult for him or her to make friends. The research literature is quite clear on this.

In a crisis, the inevitable suffering that life entails can rapidly make a mockery of the idea that happiness is the proper pursuit of the individual. On the radio show, I suggested, instead, a deeper meaning was required. I noted that the nature of such meaning was constantly re-presented in the great stories of the past, and that it had more to do with developing character in the face of suffering than with happiness.

You are not only something that is. You are something that is becoming—and the potential extent of that becoming also transcends your understanding.

Set your ambitions, even if you are uncertain about what they should be. The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power. Status you can lose. You carry character with you wherever you go, and it allows you to prevail against adversity. Knowing this, tie a rope to a boulder

Two-year-olds, statistically speaking, are the most violent of people.

Pointing is, as well, a crucial precursor to the development of language. To name something—to use the word for the thing—is essentially to point to it, to specify it against everything else, to isolate it for use individually and socially.

No one standing still can triumph, no matter how well constituted.

Hemos perdido el universo mítico de la mente preexperimental, o al menos hemos dejado de propiciar su desarrollo. Esa pérdida ha dejado nuestro creciente poder tecnológico más peligrosamente a la merced de nuestros sistemas de valoración, que todavía son inconscientes.

And given that our brains are plastic, and all develop differently based on our life experiences, why even expect that a few rules might be helpful to us all?

Thus, the position of top dog, when occupied properly, has as one of its fundamental attractions the opportunity to identify deserving individuals at or near the beginning of their professional life, and provide them with the means of productive advancement.

We are well advised to take on challenges at precisely the rate that engages and compels alertness, and forces the development of courage, skill, and talent, and to avoid foolhardy confrontation with that which lies beyond current comprehension.

Women's proclivity to say no, more than any other force, has shaped our evolution into the creative, industrious, upright, large-brained (competitive, aggressive, domineering) creatures that we are.

Imagine that you are very good at some, middling at others, and terrible at the remainder. Perhaps that's how it should be. You might object: I should be winning at everything! But winning at everything might only mean that you're not doing anything new or difficult. You might be winning but you're not growing, and growing might be the most important form of winning. Should victory in the present always take precedence over trajectory across time?

Too much protection devastates the developing soul.

Un largo periodo de falta de libertad —de adhesión a una estructura interpretativa particular— es necesario para que se desarrolle una mente libre.

Parents are the arbiters of society. They teach children how to behave so that other people will be able to interact meaningfully and productively with them.

growing might be the most important form of winning.

We become stronger by voluntarily facing what impedes our necessary progress.

Excuse the cliché, but it is necessary to walk before you can run. You may even have to crawl before you can walk. This is part of accepting your position as a beginner, at the bottom of the hierarchy you so casually, arrogantly, and self-servingly despise.

We are always and simultaneously at point "a" (which is less desirable than it could be), moving towards point "b" (which we deem better, in accordance with our explicit and implicit values).

Even the most assiduous of parents cannot fully protect their children, even if they lock them in the basement, safely away from drugs, alcohol and internet porn. In that extreme case, the too-cautious, too-caring parent merely substitutes him or herself for the other terrible problems of life. This is the great Freudian Oedipal nightmare. It is far better to render beings in your care competent than to protect them.

Stretching yourself beyond the boundaries of your current self requires carefully choosing and then pursuing ideals: ideals that are up there, above you, superior to you—and that you can't always be sure you will reach.

There is great intrinsic pleasure in helping already competent and admirable young people become highly skilled, socially valuable, autonomous, responsible professionals. It is not unlike the pleasure taken in raising children, and it is one of the primary motivators of valid ambition.

It is through such millennia-long exercise of the imagination that the idea of abstracted moral concepts themselves, with all they entail, developed.