Respect Each Others’ Delusions
The Morgan Housel Podcast
Morgan Housel
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 December 2023
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
One sentence that knocked me off my feet when I read Will and Ariel Durant’s The Lessons of History was: "Learn enough from history to bear reality patiently, and respect one another’s delusions."
I love that so much.
The key here is accepting that everyone is deluded in their own unique way. You, me, all of us.
When you realize that you – the good, noble, well-meaning, even-tempered, fact-driven person that you are – have views of how the world works that are sure to be incomplete if not completely wrong, you should have empathy for others whose deluded beliefs are obvious to you. I am such a fan of Daniel Kahneman’s observation that we are better at spotting other people’s flaws than our own.
This episode shares three reasons why all of us become deluded in our own way.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back. As we wrap the year, just a quick short podcast today because I want to go spend time with my |
| 0:14.4 | family and I'm sure you do too. I've always loved this saying and I've not been able |
| 0:20.7 | to track down who exactly said this first but I love this saying that people don't remember books. |
| 0:26.0 | They remember sentences. |
| 0:28.0 | I think that's true for a lot of content. |
| 0:32.0 | Movies, articles, articles, |
| 0:34.1 | podcasts maybe. |
| 0:35.8 | People don't remember the full body of work. |
| 0:38.0 | They remember a couple of sentences |
| 0:40.4 | that were memorable, stuck with them, and maybe even changed their life. |
| 0:45.0 | One of those sentences that has always stuck with me and knocked me off my feet when I first read it comes from this book written by Will and |
| 0:55.0 | Ariel Durant called The Lessons of History. |
| 0:59.2 | And here's the quote, I want to share it with you. |
| 1:01.6 | They say, quote, |
| 1:03.3 | learn enough from history to bear reality patiently |
| 1:07.7 | and respect one another's delusions. |
| 1:16.0 | I'm just gonna repeat this because it's so it's so powerful. Learn enough from history to bear reality patiently and respect one another's delusions. |
| 1:23.0 | I love that sentence so much, and the key here |
| 1:27.0 | is accepting that everybody is deluded in their own unique way. |
| 1:31.0 | You are, I am, all of us are. And when you realize that you, the good, |
| 1:38.6 | noble, well-meaning, even-tempered, fact-driven person that you are, you have views about how the world works that |
| 1:47.8 | are guaranteed to be incomplete, if not completely wrong. |
... |
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