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Jordan Peterson Quotes (1962-)
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About Jordan Peterson
Jordan Bernt Peterson (born June 12, 1962) is a Canadian clinical psychologist at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (1999), 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2017), Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life (2021) and We Who Wrestle With God (2024)
Best Jordan Peterson Quotes
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful Jordan Peterson quotes.
“Competence can step in where popularity cannot go.”
“If you aim at nothing, you become plagued by everything.”
“The eternal dragon is always giving our fallen-down castles a rough time—always.”
“Group identity can be fractionated right down to the level of the individual.”
“When the aristocracy catches a cold, as it is said, the working class dies of pneumonia.”
“Do you want to be what you are or do you want to be what continually changes what you are?”
“People camouflage against the herd. People aren't after happiness, they're after not hurting.”
“There's no difference between the conquering of the unknown and the creation of habitable order.”
“If religion was "the opium of the masses," then communism was the methamphetamine of the masses.”
“Romance requires trust—and the deeper the trust, the deeper the possibility for romance.”
“Every explorer is therefore, by necessity, a revolutionary, and every successful revolutionary is a peacemaker.”
“It was the bringing together of a warring multiplicity under the unifying doctrines of Christianity that civilized Europe.”
“There are three fundamental states of social being: tyranny (you do what I want), slavery (I do what you want), or negotiation.”
“Proof itself, of any sort, is impossible, without an axiom (as Gödel proved). Thus faith in God is a prerequisite for all proof.”
“Women are attracted to men's ability to generate, to be productive, and to share. These qualities transcend wealth, which can disappear.”
“To write something long, sophisticated, and coherent means, at least in part, to become more complex, articulate, and deeper in personality.”
Jordan Peterson Quotes by Topic
Find exactly what you are looking for by browsing this categorized list of Jordan Peterson quotes by topic.
Jordan Peterson on Ideology 2 quotes
“Like God, however, ideology is dead. The bloody excesses of the twentieth century killed it.”
Jordan Peterson on Evil 2 quotes
“We are fascinated by evil. We watch dramatic representations of serial killers, psychopaths, and the kings of organized crime, gang members, rapists, contract killers, and spies. We voluntarily frighten and disgust ourselves with thrillers and horror films—and it is more than prurient curiosity.”
Jordan Peterson on Beauty 2 quotes
“Beauty leads you back to what you have lost. Beauty reminds you of what remains forever immune to cynicism. Beauty beckons in a manner that straightens your aim. Beauty reminds you that there is lesser and greater value. Many things make life worth living: love, play, courage, gratitude, work, friendship, truth, grace, hope, virtue, and responsibility. But beauty is among the greatest of these.”
Jordan Peterson on Conservatism 2 quotes
“What do you do […] when you are not blinded by ideology, and you see the world and all its dramatic characters clearly? Well, you do not hope for the infinite perfectibility of humanity and aim your system at some unattainable utopia. You try to design a system that sinners such as you cannot damage too badly—too permanently—even when they are half blind and resentful. To the degree that I am conservative in orientation, I believe in the wisdom of that vision.”
Jordan Peterson on Learning
“Learn from the past. Or repeat its horrors, in imagination, endlessly.”
Jordan Peterson on Aristocracy
“When the aristocracy catches a cold, as it is said, the working class dies of pneumonia.”
Jordan Peterson on Romance
“Romance requires trust—and the deeper the trust, the deeper the possibility for romance.”
Jordan Peterson on Advice
Jordan Peterson on Progress
Jordan Peterson on Christianity
“It was the bringing together of a warring multiplicity under the unifying doctrines of Christianity that civilized Europe.”
Jordan Peterson on Writing
“To write something long, sophisticated, and coherent means, at least in part, to become more complex, articulate, and deeper in personality.”
Jordan Peterson on Bears
“I have camped where the grizzly bears were plentiful. It is nice that they are on the planet and all that, but I prefer my grizzlies shy, not too hungry, and far enough away to be picturesque.”
What Jordan Peterson Said About Others
Discover personal opinions Jordan Peterson shared regarding contemporaries.
Jordan Peterson on Sigmund Freud
Jordan Peterson on Ben Shapiro
Jordan Peterson on Jesus
“Although Christ commits many acts that might be considered revolutionary […] He is nonetheless explicitly portrayed in the Gospels as the master of tradition.”
Quotes About Jordan Peterson
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about Jordan Peterson from others.
Christian Chensvold on Jordan Peterson
“Countless men are grateful to Jordan Peterson for having the courage to speak his mind on a contentious social matter. This temporal issue brought him many enemies, but his timeless messages earned followers that vastly outnumber them. The sheer numbers testify that he is the right man at the right time, someone capable of showing young men that cleaning up their room has cosmic significance, and that imposing a little order upon chaos is good for the soul, which in turn is good for the world.”
Tim Lott on Jordan Peterson
“Peterson can take the most difficult ideas and make them entertaining. He is fast becoming the closest that academia has to a rock star.”
Robert Mariani on Jordan Peterson
“For all the bizarre but now-familiar attempts to smear him as ‘far-right,’ Jordan Peterson is just a centrist liberal, with all the uninterestingness that that entails. But he’s a centrist liberal who has been demoralized by the officialization of polite falsehood enough to loudly speak what should be insipid truths. Platitudes like ‘Enlightenment values are worth preserving’ and ‘science is true even if when produces discomforting results’ now qualify as bomb-throwing.”
Yoram Hazony on Jordan Peterson
“The startling success of his elevated arguments for the importance of order has made [Jordan Peterson] the most significant conservative thinker to appear in the English-speaking world in a generation.”
Vox Day on Jordan Peterson
“The more you hear Peterson babble about anything that isn’t himself, the more it becomes apparent that he’s simply not very intelligent or very well-read.”
Helen Lewis on Jordan Peterson
“Peterson is, in many ways, countercultural. He doesn't offer get-rich-quick schemes, or pick-up techniques. He is not libertine or libertarian. He promises that life is a struggle, but that it is ultimately worthwhile.”
Larry Alex Taunton on Jordan Peterson
“Peterson tosses 2,000 years of Christian biblical theology and redefines what it means to be a Christian as mere truth-seeking — no repentance, no regeneration, no profession of faith, and it seems not even a conscious decision to become a follower of Jesus Christ. This Christ-less Christianity is so cut-rate as to make what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace” look downright expensive. …There is more of the postmodern about Peterson’s philosophy than one might imagine.”
About Jordan Peterson
Jordan Bernt Peterson (born June 12, 1962) is a Canadian clinical psychologist at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (1999), 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2017), Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life (2021) and We Who Wrestle With God (2024)