Jordan Peterson is a Canadian clinical psychologist and a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto.
He is is regarded by his current University of Toronto students as one of three truly life-changing professors, and was nominated for the prestigious Levinson Teaching Prize as a Harvard professor.
He is the author of the million-plus selling 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, which has been an international bestseller.
Dr. Peterson’s YouTube channel, Jordan Peterson Videos over a million subscribers and 60 million views. His popular podcast is regularly number 1 in iTunes Higher Education category, and varies between Number 1 and Number 3 in Education, overall.
Jordan Peterson has a unique was of approaching complex and often polarizing topics which is only adding to his fan base and popularity. He has a lot of useful advice to be true to yourelf and live your best life. Below I’ve compiled the best 101 Jordan Peterson quotes to get your life in order. Enjoy!
101 Jordan Peterson Quotes
1. “Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens.” – Jordan Peterson
2. “Blaming others for your problems is a complete waste of time. When you do that, you don’t learn anything. You can’t grow and you can’t mature. Thus you can’t make your life better.” – Jordan Peterson
3. “You must determine where you are going, so that you can bargain for yourself, so that you don’t end up resentful, vengeful, and cruel.” – Jordan Peterson
4. “You should never sacrifice what you could be for what you are.” – Jordan Peterson
5. “Confront the chaos of Being. Take aim against a sea of troubles. Specify your destination, and chart your course.” – Jordan Peterson
6. “Put the things you can control in order. Repair what is in disorder, and make what is already good better.” – Jordan Peterson
7. “You must determine where you are going in your life, because you cannot get there unless you move in that direction. Random wandering will not move you forward. It will instead disappoint and frustrate you and make you anxious and unhappy and hard to get along with (and then resentful, and then vengeful, and then worse).” – Jordan Peterson
8. “It is not virtuous to be victimized by a bully, even if that bully is oneself.” – Jordan Peterson
9. “It is much better for any relationship when both partners are strong.” – Jordan Peterson
10. “If you have a friend whose friendship you wouldn’t recommend to your sister, or your father, or your son, why would you have such a friend for yourself?” – Jordan Peterson
11. “There’s some real utility in gratitude. It’s also good protection against the dangers of victimhood and resentment.” – Jordan Peterson
12. “What you aim at determines what you see.” – Jordan Peterson
13. “We only see what we aim at. The rest of the world (and that’s most of it) is hidden.” – Jordan Peterson
14. “To journey happily may well be better than to arrive successfully.” – Jordan Peterson
15. “The successful among us delay gratification. The successful among us bargain with the future.” – Jordan Peterson
16. “Sometimes, when things are not going well, it’s not the world that’s the cause.” – Jordan Peterson
17. “The better ambitions have to do with 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.” – Jordan Peterson
18. “If you feel weak and rejected, and desperate, and confused, try telling the truth. In Paradise, everyone speaks the truth. That is what makes it Paradise.” – Jordan Peterson
19. “People think they think, but it’s not true. It’s mostly self-criticism that passes for thinking.” – Jordan Peterson
20. “When things break down, what has been ignored rushes in.” – Jordan Peterson
21. “There are two major reasons for resentment: being taken advantage of (or allowing yourself to be taken advantage of), or whiny refusal to adopt responsibility and grow up.” – Jordan Peterson
22. “Hating life, despising life – even for the genuine pain that life inflicts – merely serves to make life itself worse, unbearably worse.” – Jordan Peterson
23. “If you don’t say what you think then you kill your unborn self.” – Jordan Peterson
24. “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.” – Jordan Peterson
25. “We deserve some respect. You deserve some respect. You are important to other people, as much as to yourself. You have some vital role to play in the unfolding destiny of the world. You are, therefore, morally obliged to take care of yourself. You should take care of, help and be good to yourself the same way you would take care of, help and be good to someone you loved and valued.” – Jordan Peterson
26. “The purpose of life is finding the largest burden that you can bear and bearing it.” – Jordan Peterson
27. “Consciousness is a mystery that faces the mystery of potential and transforms it into actuality. We do that with every choice we make. Our choices determine the destiny of the world. By making a choice, you alter the structure of reality.” – Jordan Peterson
28. “If you fulfil your obligations everyday you don’t need to worry about the future.” – Jordan Peterson
29. “You’re going to pay a price for every bloody thing you do and everything you don’t do. You don’t get to choose to not pay a price. You get to choose which poison you’re going to take. That’s it.” – Jordan Peterson
30. “When the internal critic puts you down using such comparisons, here’s how it operates: First, it selects a single, arbitrary domain of comparison. Then it acts as if that domain is the only one relevant. Then it contrasts you unfavorably with someone truly stellar, within that domain. It can take that final step even further, using the unbridgeable gap between you and its target of comparison as evidence for the fundamental injustice of life. That way your motivation to do anything at all can be most effectively undermined.” – Jordan Peterson
31. “The first step, perhaps, is to take stock. Who are you? When you buy a house and prepare to live in it, you hire an inspector to list all its faults–as it is, in reality, now, not as you wish it could be. You’ll even pay him for the bad news. You need to know. You need to discover the home’s hidden flaws. You need to know whether they are cosmetic imperfections or structural inadequacies. You need to know because you can’t fix something if you don’t know it’s broken–and you’re broken. You need an inspector. The internal critic–it could play that role, if you could get it on track; if you and it could cooperate.” – Jordan Peterson
32. “Why refuse to specify? Because while you are failing to define success, you are also refusing to define failure, to yourself, so that if and when you fail you won’t notice, and it won’t hurt. But that won’t work! You cannot be fooled so easily–unless you have gone very far down the road! You will instead carry with you a continual sense of disappointment in your own Being and the self-contempt that comes along with that and the increasing hatred for the world that all of that generates.” – Jordan Peterson
33. “Can you imagine yourself in 10 years if instead of avoiding the things you know you should do, you actually did them every single day – That’s powerful.” – Jordan Peterson
34. “Instead of protesting and trying to change the world, first win the war of evil within yourself. To make the world a better place first do the things you have to do everyday. And do them – actually do them everyday.” – Jordan Peterson
35. “Be the hero your mom wanted you to be.” – Jordan Peterson
36. Do the things which make you strong. Stop doing the things which make you weak (unless you want to be weak). – Jordan Peterson
37. “There’s nothing more powerful than paying attention.” – Jordan Peterson
38. “You cannot be protected from the things that frighten you and hurt you, but if you identify with the part of your being that is responsible for transformation, then you are always the equal, or more than the equal of the things that frighten you.” – Jordan Peterson
39. “Do not allow yourself to become arrogant or resentful.” – Jordan Peterson
40. “There’s lots of times in your life that you’re not going to be happy… You want to have something meaningful – that’s the boat that will take you through the storm.” – Jordan Peterson
41. “A question to ask is ‘What do you do when you encounter a lion?’, or ‘What do you do when you encounter someone angry?’ – Explore. That can make you the master of a situation, so you can be the master of something like fire without being terrified of it.” – Jordan Peterson
42. “By changing what you cling to in the present, you can alter the future.” – Jordan Peterson
43. “Strengthen the individual. Start with yourself. Take care of yourself. Define who you are. Refine your personality. Choose your destination.” – Jordan Peterson
44. “He whose life has a why can bear almost any how.” – Jordan Peterson
45. You might be winning but you’re not growing, and growing might be the most important form of winning. – Jordan Peterson
46. “Watch people like a hawk, and when they do something good, tell them.” – Jordan Peterson
47. “No learning environment is safe, by the way. I don’t know about you, but every important thing in my life I’ve ever learned was painful.” – Jordan Peterson
48. “If you dare to do the most difficult thing you can conceptualize your life will work out better than if you do anything else.” – Jordan Peterson
49. “Make friends with people who want the best for you.” – Jordan Peterson
50. “Get your life together and when that happens, you’ll be more productive.” – Jordan Peterson
51. “Maintain your connections with people in your life.” – Jordan Peterson
52. “Do not try to rescue someone who does not want to be rescued, and be very careful about rescuing someone who does.” – Jordan Peterson
53. “Dress like the person you want to be.” – Jordan Peterson
54. “Be precise in your speech.” – Jordan Peterson
55. “Don’t avoid something frightening if it stands in your way.” – Jordan Peterson
56. “Do not hide unwanted things in the fog.” – Jordan Peterson
57. “Read something written by someone great.” – Jordan Peterson
58. “Don’t let bullies get away with it.” – Jordan Peterson
59. “Remember that what you do not know is more important than what you already know.” – Jordan Peterson
60. “Be grateful in spite of your suffering.” – Jordan Peterson
61. “There are some games you don’t get to play unless you are all in.” – Jordan Peterson
62. “Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.” – Jordan Peterson
63. “Face the demands of life voluntarily. Respond to a challenge, instead of bracing for catastrophe.” – Jordan Peterson
64. “Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.” – Jordan Peterson
65. “Stop doing the things that you know are wrong that you could stop doing.” – Jordan Peterson
66. “Often people won’t specify what their goals are because they don’t like to specify conditions for failure. So if you keep yourself all vague and foggy which is real easy because that’s just a matter of not doing as well – then you don’t know when you fail.” – Jordan Peterson
67. “Perhaps you are overvaluing what you don’t have and undervaluing what you do.” – Jordan Peterson
68. “You have to treat yourself like you matter because if you don’t then you don’t take care of yourself and you become vengeful and cruel and you take it out on people around you and you are not a positive force. None of that is good…you suffer more and so does everyone else around you.” – Jordan Peterson
69. “If you can’t even clean up your own room, who the hell are you to give advice to the world?” – Jordan Peterson
70. “Anything you let win the internal argument grows. And anything you let be defeated shrinks… So that’s another thing really to remember: Don’t practice what you do not want to become.” – Jordan Peterson
71. “If you make your criteria for success razor sharp then you know every time you screw up. But that’s great because then you could fix it!” – Jordan Peterson
72. “If your life isn’t everything it could be…stop wasting all of the opportunities that are in front of you.” – Jordan Peterson
73. “Don’t underestimate the power of vision and direction. These are irresistible forces, able to transform what might appear to be unconquerable obstacles into traversable pathways and expanding opportunities. Strengthen the individual. Start with yourself.” – Jordan Peterson
74. “Stop saying those things that make you weak and ashamed. Say only those things that make you strong. Do only those things that you could speak of with honour.” – Jordan Peterson
75. “Specify your damn goals because how are you going to hit something if you don’t know what it is?” – Jordan Peterson
76. “We experience most positive emotion in relationship to a goal and what that means is if you don’t have a goal then you don’t have any motivation.” – Jordan Peterson
77. “The future is a hydra of snakes and terrors. But, it’s there whether you confront it or not, so you might as well confront it.” – Jordan Peterson
78. “A major part of life and its meaning is the challenge that comes with confronting difficulties.” – Jordan Peterson
79. “One definition of a winner is someone who never let losing stop them.” – Jordan Peterson
80. “You take care of yourself. You take care of your intimate partner. You take care of your damn family, you don’t run off. You take care of your community. You rescue the wisdom from the past. You stand up straight and you be courageous despite the fact that life is tragic and tainted by malevolence. Ancient wisdom, that’s what that is.” – Jordan Peterson
81. “People are entitled to their opinion, but they’re not entitled to put it in the law.” – Jordan Peterson
82. “Find something in your life that’s so worthwhile doing that the fact that you’re going to suffer is justifiable.” – Jordan Peterson
83. “Humility is the precondition for learning and why it’s one of the highest moral virtues.” – Jordan Peterson
84. “What I’ve been telling young men is that…there’s an actual reason why they need to grow up. Which is that they have something to offer. People have within them this capacity to set the world straight and that’s necessary to manifest in the world. Also, doing so is where you find the meaning that sustains you in life.” – Jordan Peterson
85. “Happiness is a fleeting emotion. It occurs most appropriately along the journey to somewhere genuinely worth going.” – Jordan Peterson
86. “I would say you should surround yourself with people who are aiming up and who want the best for what’s best in you. Unless you want people that will excuse your pathologies and make way for your weakness and lead you down the path of perdition.” – Jordan Peterson
87. “You want to take on responsibility. You want to take on the heaviest load that you can conceive of that you might be able to move because it gives your life nobility and purpose. And that offsets the tragedy.” – Jordan Peterson
88. “Dragons hoard gold because the thing you most need is always to be found where you least want to look.” – Jordan Peterson
89. “It’s not particularly useful to compare yourself to other people. But it is useful to compare yourself to yourself.” – Jordan Peterson
90. “The rule is for people in your care…do not do anything for them they can do for themselves. A very harsh rule, but you want to foster their independence.” – Jordan Peterson
91. “Sometimes taking a risk really pays off. And not taking a risk is also a risk. So there’s no way out of risk. It’s a gamble one way or another.” – Jordan Peterson
92. “If you don’t have anything to look up to, you don’t have anything to do. A lot of the meaning that people find in their lives is purpose driven.” – Jordan Peterson
93. “If you’re going to fix complicated problems, you have to learn how to fix simple problems first.” – Jordan Peterson
94. “Take care of yourself, but take care of yourself in a way that also means that simultaneously you’re taking care of your family. That also means that simultaneously you’re taking care of the broader community.” – Jordan Peterson
95. “Get your act together. Stand up in the world. Make something of yourself. Stay away from the ideological oversimplifications. Set your house in order.” – Jordan Peterson
96. “It’s better to be adult than to be a child, it’s better. It’s better to be in control of you own destiny. There’s a place for you in the world. The world would be lesser if you don’t take your place in it.” – Jordan Peterson
97. “It isn’t enough to read, you also have to write, and if you’re going to go to graduate school you should write every day. It’s a good idea for anyone who wants to develop themselves intellectually. Even a half an hour a day, that’s 180 hours a year. That’s a lot of thinking, because writing is thinking.” – Jordan Peterson
98. “The proper way to fix the world isn’t to fix the world. There’s no reason to assume that you’re even up to such a task…but you can fix yourself. You’ll do no one any harm by doing so. And in that manner at least, you will make the world a better place.” – Jordan Peterson
99. “You can’t change other people, but you can change yourself.” – Jordan Peterson
100. “If you’re going to be successful you need to be smart, conscientious, and tough.” – Jordan Peterson
101. “You can do an awful lot by writing down what happened to you and thinking it through.” – Jordan Peterson
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