Stefan Molyneux Quotes

People's expectations of us are almost always who we become. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The acknowledgement of having suffered evil is the greatest step forward in mental health. ~ Stefan Molyneux

To connect is to dissolve the imaginary pyramids of artificial privilege. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Our victimization in a way, can turn us into bullies because, the other person isn't doing something that we want and we get hurt. That way we get to bully that person and tell them basically you're a bad person for hurting me but, if you're burned all over and I give you a gentle hug and I dont know it, I'm not hurting you so to speak. It's the burns that are hurting you. ~ Stefan Molyneux

What I'm talking about, what I strongly suggest to people, is that they should get closer to the people they're with. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Bullying is an attack upon the runts of the litter - the weak of the species, and it is predicated on a lack of bond with the parents. If a child has a secure bond with the parents, that forms a force-field around the child in terms of bullying. If the child does not have a strong bond with the parents, then it's like being separated from the herd - those
are the ones who get picked off by the human predators in childhood and adulthood. So keep your contacts as close as you can, they provide an amazing shield against bullies and users. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Do Libertarians care about the poor? Well, we're not ladening them down with debt, we're not sending them off to God damned wars, we're not creating a permanent underclass, we're not trapping them in shitty schools where they graduate unable to read, WE DO CARE ABOUT THE POOR, and that's why we want the State out of their way!! ~ Stefan Molyneux

Rights are something made up by governments to make you feel like you're buying something with your taxes. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Since we own our bodies, we also inevitably own the effects of our actions, be they good or bad. If we own the effects of our actions, then clearly we own that which we produce, whether what we produce is a bow, or a book - or a murder. ~ Stefan Molyneux

If you are for gun control, then you are not against guns, because the guns will be needed to disarm people. So it's not that you are anti-gun. You'll need the police's guns to take away other people's guns. So you're very Pro-Gun, you just believe that only the Government (which is, of course, so reliable, honest, moral and virtuous ... ) should be allowed to have guns. There is no such thing as gun control. There is only centralizing gun ownership in the hands of a small, political elite and their minions. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Asshole Proximity Disorder ~ Stefan Molyneux

The idea that the State is capable of solving social problems is now viewed with great skepticism - which foretells a coming change.

As soon as skepticism is applied to the State, the State falls, since it fails at everything except increasing its power, and so can only survive on propaganda, which relies on unquestioning faith. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The expression of preferences is the essence of love. ~ Stefan Molyneux

A man goes to a foreign country and kills somebody who's not aggressing against him; in a Hawaiian shirt he's a criminal, in a green costume he's a hero who gets a parade and a pension. So that, as a culture, we remain in a state of moral insanity. To point out these contradictions to people in society is to be labeled insane. This is how insane society remains, that anybody who points out logical opposites in the most essential human topic of ethics, is considered to be insane. ~ Stefan Molyneux

We can only avoid the traps we can see. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The price of getting men to fight is giving them respect. Men will fight to protect women they love, men will fight to protect children they have fathered, for obvious reasons, both moral and biological, but where a man is not respected, where men are 'cucked' . . . if men utilized and turned into a form of captive livestock, if men are enslaved to female vanity, protectiveness, emotional self-defense, what happens is men don't love their societies anymore because society is not giving them respect. The men are in the same relationship to society as an abused woman is to an abusive man. There may be attachment, an unwillingness or lack of capacity to escape, but there's no love. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Because the state uses violence to achieve its ends, and there is no rational end to the use of violence, states grow until they destroy civilized interactions through the corruption of money, contracts, honesty, family and self-reliance.

No state in history has ever been contained.

It's only taken a little more than a century for the US – founded on the idea of limited government, to break the bonds of the constitution, institute the income tax, take control of the money supply and the educational system and begin its catastrophic expansion. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Nationalism is pimped-out bigotry, designed to provoke a Stockholm Syndrome in the livestock. ~ Stefan Molyneux

If you look at America, which was the experiment of the smallest conceivable government, what grows out of that is the largest government the world has ever seen. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The least Anararchic person in that conversation is the person saying 'you can't be an anarchist if you believe in god.' Because that's not an argument, it's just a statement. Why would somebody accept that? Because they either bow to your authority or they are afraid of your aggression. That's threatening to be another kind of ruler. Does that make any sense? ~ Stefan Molyneux

A big rock can handle a hammer blow, it just gets chipped a little, what it can't handle is erosion ~ Stefan Molyneux

No matter who you vote for, the government stays in power ~ Stefan Molyneux

Almost all heroism is designed to make you inert by placing it in a context that you can't possibly act on. ~ Stefan Molyneux

I'm sure a few marriages broke up because of feminism; it doesn't make feminism a cult. ~ Stefan Molyneux

We can't leave the past in the past because, the past is who we are. It's like saying I wish I could forget English. So, there is no leaving the past in the past. It doesn't mean the past has to define and dominate everything in the future. The fact that I had a temper in my teens doesn't mean I have to be an angry person for the rest of my life. It just means that I had allot to be angry about but, didn't have the language and the understanding to know what it was and how big it was. I thought my anger was disproportionate to the environment which is what is called having a bad temper but, it just means that I underestimated the environment and my anger was telling me how wide and deep child abuse is in society but, I didn't understand that consciously so I thought my anger was disproportionate to the environment but, it wasn't. There is almost no amount of anger that's proportionate to the degree of child abuse in the world.

The fantasy that you can not be somebody that lived through what you lived through is damaging to yourself and to your capacity to relate to others. People who care about you, people who are going to grow to love you need to know who you are and that you were shaped by what you've experienced for better and for worse. There is a great deal of challenge in talking about these issues. Lots of people in this world have been hurt as children. Most people have been hurt in this world as children and when you talk honestly and openly it's very dif ~ Stefan Molyneux

Eye-rolling is not exactly the pinnacle of socratic investigation. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The unconscious is the true accumulation of your history.
It can be accepted or rejected but it can't fundamentally be altered. ~ Stefan Molyneux

If the sound of happy children is grating on your ears, I don't think it's the children who need to be adjusted. ~ Stefan Molyneux

So bitcoin gives us an opportunity to reclaim the power of the people to say yes or no to what the government claims that it wants to do. ~ Stefan Molyneux

There is nothing that is going to make people hate you more, and love you more, than telling the truth. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The tombstone over the grave of the conscience always reads: "Human Nature". ~ Stefan Molyneux

The war on drugs is really the war on people who buy drugs from people who don't lobby the government. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The entire point of a new theory is that it is unprecedented; the first man to invent a jet aircraft could scarcely submit examples of jet aircraft flying in the past. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Being loved means; are disagreements welcome in my relationships? If you cant disagree with someone then you live in a tyranny and if you live in a tyranny then you are only loved to the degree that you erase yourself and conform to the irrational expectations of bullies. That isn't love obviously.
Now if somebody in you life demands that you not disagree with them and gets angry, "offended", or outraged should you disagree with them then, that person is not a good person. It's pretty narcissistic. It's somebody who does not have the maturity, wisdom, and ego strength to handle, and in fact welcome disagreements.
When people disagree with me as a whole I think it's a great opportunity for learning. People don't want to expose topics that might cause disagreement because, if the disagreement is punished then the illusion of being loved by good people is shattered. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The cult of friendship disturbs me. It's like our quality is supposed to be measured by the number of friends we have. For me, it's quite the inverse. When somebody says "I'm friends with everyone" I just assume they have the spine of your average jellyfish and the integrity of your average soap dish.
"I have tons of close friends!" Ok, then you obviously have no standards. "I've slept with lots of people!" Good, I will shake your hand from inside this Hazmat suit. It's like you have to have friends or you're nothing, and you gotta have lots of friends, and the more friends you have the more value you have. This Is a way of lowering our standards to fit in.
I'm a big fan of quality over quantity. Everyone wants to look at their life like it's a beer commercial they can just climb into. The larger the circle of friends the more alcohol is involved to blind yourself to the fact that you cant stand most of these assholes. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Theres nothing more efficient than honesty and nothing more powerful than vulnerability because, vulnerability reveals everyone in your life who will abuse power immediately and almost irrevocably.

Theres nothing weaker than hiding your vulnerability because, it means a refusal to stare at those who abuse power and see them for who they are which means they still have power and control over you. Nothing is stronger than vulnerability. Nothing more clarifying. Nothing is clearer than vulnerability, and if you hide who you are you are just making a tombstone of your everyday actions because you dont exist in hiding and you're letting the past rob you.

Exercise the power of vulnerability. When you are vulnerable you are signaling to your system that the past is over and done! That you're no longer a victim! That you're no longer trapped in a destructive and abusive environment! vulnerability means it's over, it's done. The war is over but, if you continue to use the same defenses that you had in the past all you're telling your whole body is that the past is not over.

Be vulnerable. Be honest. Be open and show your heart. That's the best way of telling your heart that the tigers are no longer in the grass. I'm telling you, just take it for a spin. Vulnerability and openness will get you what you want in your life and hiding will only get you the feeling of being prey from here until the end of your life. ~ Stefan Molyneux

I try not to be around people who want me to be somebody else. Fundamentally you can't be somebody else. You can only be less of who you are. ~ Stefan Molyneux

It is very hard to understand the logic and intelligence of the argument that, in order to protect us from a group that might overpower us, we should support a group that already has overpowered us. It ~ Stefan Molyneux

We raise predators by treating children as prey. ~ Stefan Molyneux

It is the height of human happiness to have somebody to love. Our agony is that we have all the light and the paint but no canvas to put the art of our hearts on. ~ Stefan Molyneux

History is the same story with different costumes. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The best way to destroy the decrepit is to build the glorious. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Facts do not fall in the face of discomfort. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Anger is the immune system of the soul. ~ Stefan Molyneux

We have won the time lottery of the last 4 billion years. ~ Stefan Molyneux

We are not taught to fear our politicians, who can debase our currency, throw us in prison and send us to war - but rather we are taught to fear each other. We are taught to imagine that the real predators in this world are not those who control prison cells, national debts and nuclear weapons, but rather our fellow citizens, who in the absence of brutal control would surely tear us apart! ~ Stefan Molyneux

Improving the world can be a nasty and ugly and difficult and dangerous business ... because when you improve the world, you threaten the entrenched interests of evil people. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Don't try to sail your ship now by how the wind is going to be in three days.
You have to sail with the winds are they are now. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Corporations are legal fictions created by the State to shield executives from liability ... It's like if I had a little hand-puppet, and I went to rob a bank, and the hand-puppet held the little gun and told people to hand over all the money, and then the hand-puppet grabbed the money and ran out, and then I got caught and I handed the hand-puppet over the police and then the police tried the hand-puppet, put the hand-puppet in jail, and I get to keep all the money. ~ Stefan Molyneux

There is no external solution to the problem of insecurity. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Politicians are propaganda, the people with guns are the enforcers and the media is the enthusiastic lapdog who enables the entire behavior and acts as the verbal abuser against those who deviate from nodding their heads at the vast statues of evil that we inherited. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Thus we can see that – at least at the level of economics – democracy is a sort of slow-motion suicide, in which you are told that it is the highest civic virtue to approve of those
who want to rob you. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Truth has nothing to do with the conclusion, and everything to do with the methodology. ~ Stefan Molyneux

And this is what we called our childhoods. Little more than a dress rehearsal for adding our digits to the butcher's bill of war. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Using coercion to drive charity is like using kidnapping to create love. ~ Stefan Molyneux

If the majority is moral then why do they need to be ruled by a group of people who are power hungry and gun hungry and probably not quite so good? And evil people want two things: they want something for nothing, and to escape the consequences of their actions, which is pretty much the definition of what government is. ~ Stefan Molyneux

We have to HIDE from each other because we think that we are the only ones BROKEN. We think we're the only ones whose original selves we ground up and smashed under the jack-booted heel of cultural lies and superstition, patriotism, war lust, war hunger, and a denial of AGGRESSION AGAINST CHILDREN THAT IS THE FOUNDATION OF CULTURE. Culture is everything that is NOT TRUE. If it's true, it's called 'math' or 'science' or 'facts'. Culture is the Stockholm syndrome we have with the historical lies that are convenient to the rules. We love the lies, because we don't think we can be loved if we don't. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Most people, if philosophy touches them, they shatter, they atomize, they turn to dust. It is win/lose between philosophy and delusion, and most people are almost entirely composed of delusion. They're only allowed as much reality as serves the masters. But they're not allowed any reality which disturbs their masters ... ~ Stefan Molyneux

I refuse to let the standards of evil people chip away at my capacity for integrity. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Guilt is a feeling that you owe a debt that you're not paying. ~ Stefan Molyneux

An atheist who is a statist is just another theist. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The genuine values in America arose from rational thought and breaking with tradition, not from blind allegiance to dirt and cloth. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Deep down, I do not believe that there are any really good parents out there - the same way that I do not believe there were any really good doctors in the 10th century. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Awkward silences rule the world. People are so terrified of awkward silences that they will literally go to war rather than face an awkward silence. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The only part of you that hurts when you're given the truth is the part that lives on lies. ~ Stefan Molyneux

It is so irresponsible for people in the 'I want to change the course of my society' community to not do the damn research into figuring out the latest science of how people change their minds, and under what conditions people change their minds, and what exactly in their minds is being changed.

The belief systems people hold are absolutely, in no way, shape, or form the result of any objective evaluation of information. The prejudices are inherited, they're socially inflicted, they're propagandized in school, in church, in communities, in families. They are reinforced by endless bouts of patriotic media and all of this nonsense. People are an emotional Gordian knot kaleidoscopic clusterfrack of prior prejudices stuffed into their heads and held aloft by the spears of social approval and ostracism. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Evil ethicists are the holocaust of humanity; if philosophy can be the instant sunlight to their endless vampirism, it will save more lives than all the doctors who have ever lived. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Ever wonder why the media never refers to 18 or 19 year old American soldiers as "armed teens"? ~ Stefan Molyneux

Vengeance against predators is meals on wheels. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The woman who left abusive husbands in the 60's and 70's improved the institution of marriage because men now know that women can leave their husbands and the women or men who stay in abusive relationships are a massive advertisement to non- consequentiality of abuse.

So, if you stay in a abusive relationship you are signaling to everyone who ever comes in contact with you or hears about you that abusers face no consequences to their abuse therefore by staying in an abusive relationship you are encouraging and subsidizing abuse.

By getting out of abusive relationships you are saying the whole world over that abusers can't get away with it. That there are negative consequences to child, adult, or spousal abuse. You name it. It just doesn't have consequences for you, it has consequences for other people.

When you break out and reject abusive and irredeemable relationships you are sending a clear signal which all abusers are listening for at all times. "Can I get away with it?" That's all they're thinking. It is my hope that abusers hear this and say "Oh shit. The game is up. ~ Stefan Molyneux

They did the best they could with the knowledge they had." How the fuck did people know that? They didn't have no way of knowing that. Even if they did the best they could with the knowledge they had, why the hell didn't they have better knowledge? I mean, then nobody should ever fail an exam because everyone who Wright's an exam is doing the best they can with the knowledge they have. If I don't study for geography exam then I flunk out. Can I then say wait, just like the people who get a "A" I was doing the best I could with the knowledge I had. That's not an excuse for a 6 year old with a goddamn spelling B. How the hell is it an excuse for parents in full control of a developing human mind?

If you don't study for the exam you fucking fail and if you don't study for parenting you fucking fail. You don't get to say that you did the best you could with the knowledge you had. Fuck that. That's a bullshit cop-out. You goddamn will study. It's a little more important raising a child than passing a spelling B when you're 6 goddamn years old. You goddamn will study and if you don't study youre more culpable. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The government is a giant logjam in the eternal river of human potential. ~ Stefan Molyneux

People have this belief that what we believe is the effect of the facts that we're exposed to, and therefore, if we expose people to different and newer facts, they will change their beliefs. This is not true. […]

The contents of people's minds, the belief systems that they hold, are in no way, shape or form a result of any objective evaluation of information. The prejudices are inherited. They are socially inflicted. They are propagandized in school, in church, in communities, in families. They are reinforced by endless bouts of patriotic media and other sorts of nonsense. People are just an emotional Gordian knot, kaleidoscopic clusterfrack of prior prejudices [which have been] stuffed into their heads and held aloft by the spears of social approval or ostracism. Everybody is prejudiced, almost, and everybody maintains those prejudices for fear of social attack, ostracism, or disapproval.

Because people haven't been reasoned into their beliefs, they can't be reasoned out of their beliefs, [and] when people have existing prejudices, showing them facts that run counter to those prejudices does not dislodge them. In fact, statistically, it is more likely to make those prejudices stronger. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Forgiveness is created by the restitution of the abuser; of the wrongdoer. It is not something to be squeeeeeezed out of the victim in a further act of conscience-corrupting abuse. ~ Stefan Molyneux

In the same way Marxism robs workers of ambition, Feminism robs men and women of love. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Statism ends with an eye roll. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The word "rights", is something that governments need to provide you and protect you from but, the governments are the basic violators of all human rights. ~ Stefan Molyneux

It's not just the abuse of power that's the problem. It's the power to abuse. ~ Stefan Molyneux

A theoretical social state in which there is no governing person or body of persons, but each individual has absolute liberty (without implication of disorder). ~ Stefan Molyneux

The goal of parenting is to create self-sufficient virtues in children. Applying external pressure and punishments tends to teach them fear-based compliance rather than the internalization of moral standards. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Ideology is the opposite of philosophy. Philosophy is the curiosity which guides its inquiry according to universal principles. Ideology is a prior prejudice that seeks out an echo-chamber of reaffirming information. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Distraction serves evil more than any other mental state. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The ones who are insane enough to think that they can rule the world are always the ones who do. ~ Stefan Molyneux

We are supposed to call poison medicine and we wonder why we're always sick. ~ Stefan Molyneux

I would respect feminist who said "Single moms, are you kidding me? Stop taking government benefits because, the government is the patriarchy. So, you are taking things from the patriarchy so you dont have to be responsible. Any woman who takes money from the government using cops who usually extract it from men by force is not a feminist. Is a exceedingly bad bride of the state." I would admire that but, of course feminism doesn't have anything to do with any of that stuff.

Look, it's fine. Have your fun. Make fun of men. Go for it. Yea, we're all idiots, we're all selfish, greedy bastards. Ok, it's fine because the government is going to run out of money soon and then all these woman are going to try to find some guy to latch onto when the benefits stop flowing and I mean, you saw this happening with the soviet union. "Now we need you! You guys are great! We missed you so much! Give me some money!"

It's just a bunch of noise from a bunch of people who are stealing from the productive. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Baseless victimhood is usually the last stage before outright aggression. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Culture makes lies plausible through exposure to time. It makes prejudice seem like physics intergenerationally. It is therefore the most dangerous opponent of philosophy, because it feels the most credible to the average person. ~ Stefan Molyneux

You are constantly being trained to be heroic only in the service of your masters - only in slaughter and sacrifice and subjugation. But there is no heroism in serving your masters. Real heroism is questioning why you have masters at all.
All these stories, all these fantasies, all these superpowers - are designed to steal heroism from you, to make it impossible, fantastical, remote, and unachievable - and make you useful to your masters (as a hit man, if needed). What is the opposite of this?
The opposite of fantasy is philosophy. The opposite of mythology is integrity. And integrity is truth in action. ~ Stefan Molyneux

To see the farm is to leave it. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The vast majority of people are unthinking prejudice machines. ~ Stefan Molyneux

The existence of evil can never justify the existence of the State. If there is no evil, the State is unnecessary. If evil exists, the State is far too dangerous to be allowed to exist. ~ -Stefan Molyneux

Invading a statist society is like grabbing the cages of a large number of trapped chickens – you get all of the eggs in perpetuity. Invading a stateless society is like taking a sprint at a flock of seagulls – all they do is scatter, and you get nothing, except perhaps some crap on your forehead. ~ Stefan Molyneux

If there is no honesty, there is no relationship. The only degree to which there is a relationship is the degree to which you are honest. Expressing your clear desires does not make you a dictator and you telling what you think, feel, and what you want or don't want, is just called being honest. It doesn't control him at all.
You're trying to control others by withholding information by not getting involved and by not being honest. Withholding information is a form of manipulation. It is dishonest and it's destructive to a relationship. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Knowledge is responsibility, which is why people resist knowledge. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Yes I pay taxes ... There are no ethics in the face of coercion, that is blaming the victim. Focus on the man with the gun, not the man in the crosshairs trying to survive. ~ Stefan Molyneux

You look back in time to when there was slavery and you think 'how did people even remotely believe that this was a good idea?'.
It's incomprehensible for us to think of what the mindset was 100 or 200 years ago. I hope to make the present as incomprehensible to the future as the past is to us. ~ Stefan Molyneux

We are haunted houses of history.
Nobody that we meet ever dies while we are alive. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Tribalism is an addiction that is driven by false beliefs that need to be reflected back to be perceived as true. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Sorry, but I have to be who I am. Everyone else is taken ... So be your self! Speak your truth - if there are people around you who tempt you with non-existence blast through that and give them the full glory of who you are. Do not withhold yourself from the world. Do not piss on the incandescent gift of your existence. Do not drown yourself in the petty fog and dustiness of other people's ancient superstitions, unbeliefs, aggressions, culture and crap! No! Be a flare! We were born that way. Born perfectly happy being inconvenient to our parents. We shit, piss, cry, wake up at night, throw up on their shoulders, scream ... We are, in essence, in our humanity, perfectly comfortable with inconveniencing others. That's how we're born, how we grow and develop. I choose to inconvenience the irrational. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Sanity is not about confrontation. It's about filtering. Having a stable and happy life is about saying "no" to crazy people, not about inviting them in and then hoping that confrontations are going to make them sane. ~ Stefan Molyneux