79+ Best Jordan Peterson Quotes: Exclusive Selection

Jordan Bernt Peterson is a Canadian clinical psychologist and a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. Profoundly inspirational Jordan Peterson quotes on success, love, motivation, relationships, and responsibility will broaden your perspective.

Famous Jordan Peterson Quotes

If you’re going to be successful you need to be smart, conscientious, and tough. Jordan Peterson

I don’t think that you have any insight whatsoever into your capacity for good until you have some well developed insight into your capacity for evil. Jordan B. Peterson

The successful among us delay gratification and bargain with the future. Jordan Peterson

When you have something to say, silence is a lie. Jordan B. Peterson

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

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 B. Peterson

It’s better to do something badly than to not do it at all. Jordan Peterson

You can only find out what you actually believe rather than what you think you believe by watching how you act. You simply don’t know what you believe, before that. You are too complex to understand yourself. Jordan B. Peterson

Face the demands of life voluntarily. Respond to a challenge, instead of bracing for catastrophe. Jordan Peterson

And if you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of. Jordan B. Peterson

Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated. Jordan Peterson

If you don’t say what you think then you kill your unborn self. Jordan B. Peterson

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

If you fulfill your obligations everyday you don’t need to worry about the future. Jordan Peterson

Don’t be a slave to stupid rules. Jordan Peterson

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 B. Peterson

If you fulfill your obligations every day you don’t need to worry about the future. Jordan Peterson

No tree can grow to Heaven, adds the ever terrifying Carl Gustav Jung, psychoanalyst extraordinaire, unless its roots reach down to Hell. Jordan B. Peterson

People create their worlds with the tools they have directly at hand. Jordan Peterson

Intolerance of others’ views no matter how ignorant or incoherent they may be is not simply wrong; in a world where there is no right or wrong, it is worse it is a sign you are embarrassingly unsophisticated or, possibly, dangerous. Jordan B. Peterson

The creative person, by contrast, is always open to new possibilities. Jordan Peterson

To suffer terribly and to know yourself as the cause that is Hell. Jordan B. Peterson

You’re not everything you could be, and you know it. Jordan Peterson

The purpose of life, as far as I can tell is to find a mode of being that’s so meaningful that the fact that life is suffering is no longer relevant. Jordan B. Peterson

If someone is making everyone around them miserable and you’d like to know why, their motive may simply be to make everyone around them miserable including themselves. Jordan Peterson

Perhaps you are overvaluing what you don’t have and undervaluing what you do. Jordan B. Peterson

Love is the desire to see unnecessary suffering ameliorated. Jordan Peterson

If you are not willing to be a fool, you can’t become a master. Jordan B. Peterson

Don’t forget to also read our collection of most famous Abraham Maslow quotes.

The poor and stressed always die first, and in greater numbers. They are also much more susceptible to non infectious diseases, such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. When the aristocracy catches a cold, as it is said, the working class dies of pneumonia. Jordan Peterson

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 B. Peterson

Pursue what is meaningful not what is expedient. Jordan Peterson

Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today. Jordan B. Peterson

To suffer terribly and to know yourself as the cause that is Hell. Jordan Peterson

In order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive. Jordan B. Peterson

If you have a comprehensive explanation for everything then it decreases uncertainty and anxiety and reduces your cognitive load. And if you can use that simplifying algorithm to put yourself on the side of moral virtue then you’re constantly a good person with a minimum of effort. Jordan Peterson

In the West, we have been withdrawing from our tradition, religion and even nation centred cultures, partly to decrease the danger of group conflict. But we are increasingly falling prey to the desperation of meaninglessness, and that is no improvement at all. Jordan B. Peterson

The purpose of life is finding the largest burden that you can bear and bearing it. Jordan Peterson

If you have a comprehensive explanation for everything then it decreases uncertainty and anxiety and reduces your cognitive load. And if you can use that simplifying algorithm to put yourself on the side of moral virtue then you’re constantly a good person with a minimum of effort. Jordan B. Peterson

He whose life has a why can bear almost any how. Jordan Peterson

The better ambitions have to do with the 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 B. Peterson

If you don’t say what you think then you kill your unborn self. When you have something to say, silence is a lie. Jordan Peterson

Nietzsche said that a man’s worth was determined by how much truth he could tolerate. Jordan B. Peterson

The secret to your existence is right in front of you, and it manifests itself as all those things you know you should do but you’re avoiding. Jordan Peterson

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 aare always the equal, or more than the equal of the things that frighten you. Jordan B. Peterson

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

You might also like these wise Sigmund Freud quotes.

The successful among us delay gratification. The successful among us bargain with the future. Jordan B. Peterson

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

Every bit of learning is a little death. Every bit of new information challenges a previous conception, forcing it to dissolve into chaos before it can be reborn as something better. Sometimes such deaths virtually destroy us. Jordan B. Peterson

Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world. Jordan Peterson

Always place your becoming above your current being. Jordan B. Peterson

The way that you make people resilient is by voluntarily exposing them to things that they are afraid of and that make them uncomfortable. Jordan Peterson

So, listen, to yourself and to those with whom you are speaking. Your wisdom then consists not of the knowledge you already have, but the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom. Jordan B. Peterson

Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today. Jordan Peterson

You don’t get to choose not to pay a price, you only get to choose which price you pay. Jordan B. Peterson

Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens. Jordan Peterson

People organize their brains with conversation. If they don’t have anyone to tell their story to, they lose their minds. Like hoarders, they cannot unclutter themselves. Jordan B. Peterson

Humility is recognition of personal insufficiency and the willingness to learn. Jordan Peterson

There are some games you don’t get to play unless you are all in. Jordan B. Peterson

You might be winning but you’re not growing and growing might be the most important form of winning. Jordan Peterson

It is my firm belief that the best way to fix the world a handyman’s dream, if ever there was one is to fix yourself. Jordan B. Peterson

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

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 B. Peterson

So, attend carefully to your posture. Quit drooping and hunching around. Speak your mind. Put your desires forward, as if you had a right to them at least the same right as others. Walk tall and gaze forthrightly ahead. Dare to be dangerous. Encourage the serotonin to flow plentifully through the neural pathways desperate for its calming influence. Jordan Peterson

If you’re enjoying this article, you might also love our collection of meaningful Carl Jung quotes.

If your life is not what it could be, try telling the truth. If you cling desperately to an ideology, or wallow in nihilism, try telling the truth. 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. Tell the truth. Or, at least, don’t lie. Jordan B. Peterson

Make friends with people who want the best for you. Jordan Peterson

We require routine and tradition. That’s order. Order can become excessive, and that’s not good, but chaos can swamp us, so we drown and that is also not good. We need to stay on the straight and narrow path. Jordan B. Peterson

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. Jordan Peterson

What you aim at determines what you see. Jordan B. Peterson

Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping. Jordan Peterson

The secret to your existence is right in front of you. It manifests itself as all those things you know you should do, but are avoiding. Jordan B. Peterson

You can do an awful lot by writing down what happened to you and thinking it through. Jordan Peterson

If you cannot understand why someone did something, look at the consequences and infer the motivation. Jordan B. Peterson

You can only find out what you actually believe rather than what you think you believe by watching how you act. You simply don’t know what you believe, before that. You are too complex to understand yourself. Jordan Peterson

Don’t ever underestimate the destructive power of sins of omission. Jordan B. Peterson

If you’re going to insist on bending the world to your way, you better have your reasons. Jordan Peterson

The things that pose the greatest threats to your survival are the most real things. Jordan B. Peterson

Intolerance of others’ views no matter how ignorant or incoherent they may be is not simply wrong; in a world where there is no right or wrong, it is worse it is a sign you are embarrassingly unsophisticated or, possibly, dangerous. Jordan Peterson

We believe that in reducing the scope and importance of our errors, we are properly humble; in truth, we are merely unwilling to bear the weight of our true responsibility. Jordan B. Peterson