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Dante was trying to get to the bottom of what constitutes evil. There's a hierarchy of reprehensible behavior, and Dante thought it was betrayal. And I think that's right, because I believe the fundamental human resource is trust.

— Jordan Peterson

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More quotes by Jordan Peterson

Romance requires trust—and the deeper the trust, the deeper the possibility for romance.

Beyond Order (2021)

If you are not capable of cruelty, then you are absolutely a victim of anyone who is.

Your values have to be hierarchically organized with something absolute at the top, because otherwise they do nothing but war.

It took untold generations to get you where you are. A little gratitude might be in order. If you’re going to insist on bending the world to your way, you better have your reasons.

Although Christ commits many acts that might be considered revolutionary, as we discussed in Rule I, He is nonetheless explicitly portrayed in the Gospels as the master of tradition.

Beyond Order (2021)

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False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

Socrates

I believe in evil. It is the property of all those who are certain of truth. Despair and fanaticism are only differing manifestations of evil.

Edward Teller

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.

Henry David Thoreau Walden (1854)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jordan Peterson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.