What makes fantastic declarations believable is, in part, the vehemence with which they're proffered. Again, in the world … - Wendy Kaminer

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The compass spins between heaven and hell, let your soul be your pilot, let your soul guide you.

Wendy Kaminer

What makes fantastic declarations believable is, in part, the vehemence with which they're proffered. Again, in the world of spirituality as well as of pop psychology, intensity of personal belief is evidence of truth. It is considered very bad form - even abuse - to challenge the veracity of any personal testimony that might be offered in a twelve-step group or on a talk show, unless the testimony itself is equivocal. . . Whatever sells, whatever many people believe strongly, must be true.

Believe, Challenges, Group, People, Pop, Testimony

Same Author Quotes

I don't care if religious people consider me amoral because I lack their beliefs in God. I do however care deeply about efforts to turn religious beliefs into law and those efforts benefit greatly from the conviction that individually and collectively we cannot be good without God.

Conviction, God, Law, People, Religious

The phenomenal success of the recovery movement reflects two simple truths that emerge in adolescence: all people love to talk about themselves, and most people are mad at their parents. You don't have to be in denial to doubt that truths like these will set us free.

Recovery, Simple, Success, Talk, Two

Interactivity has the virtue of democracy, conferring upon everyone with access to a computer the right and opportunity to be heard, but it's also saddled with democracy's vice - a tendency to assume that everyone who has a right to be heard has something to say that's worth hearing.

Democracy, Everyone, Opportunity, Right, Vices

I do what I do because I have a compulsion to hold forth. I don't spend a lot of time, if any, thinking about the effect my work is going to have on the world. And I have an abiding mistrust of people who think that they're going to change the world. I think that people who think that they're going to change the world are the kind of people who put bombs on airplanes.

Airplane, People, Think, Thinking, World

What might once have been called whining is now exalted as a process of asserting selfhood; self-absorption is regarded as a form of self-expression.

Exalted, Expression, Might, Regarded, Self, Selfhood