Peter York Quotes

This may sound insulting to some of my cult studies friends, but there's a lot of cult studies people who ignore, shall we say, the wider canvas - because they simply don't know about its existence or they don't know how it operates.

One person's religion is another person's cult.

I don't think it takes much for a cult to be a cult. Many parts of our society are cultish, and you only need a charismatic leader and some teachings, and before you know it, you have a cult.

Intellectuals know how to answer the question, 'What God do I believe in?' not only through the question of 'What God do I abhor?' Intellectuals can also answer the question of 'What flag do I wave?' without having to answer the question of 'What flag do I burn.'

Some information is important, and some is not, and intelligence consists in knowing one from the other.

I do not read newspapers. I do not take any information which I don't want to take. I make sure I keep my composure.

I have learned that it is just as well to avoid even the appearance of something which you prefer not to have published as a fact! So many things are published as facts in any case which have no foundation in them whatsoever, that I don't suppose it really matters! For fair minded people usually wait until they verify a statement before they believe it, and those who believe it without verification are the ones who want to believe it!

The study of folklore is largely the study of particular folklore genres: myth, folktale, legend, ballad, proverb, riddle, superstition, etc.

Knowing about authors' beliefs helps you understand how those beliefs influence their writing, and things you thought meant one thing, once you've got enough information about that writer, you suddenly realize mean an entirely different thing. That makes a difference.

The child has no way of knowing what's good information.

People who lack the skill of discrimination tend to believe that everything is of relatively equal importance.

Question the motives of those who make requests of you. Discover what they really want. You may not want to give it.

Every single university student should study philosophy. You need to lead the examined life and question your beliefs. If you don't learn critical thinking, then political debate degenerates into a contest of slogans.

The difference between a cult and a religion, of course, lies in extremity.

You've got to make sure you're listening to the people that are important to listen to. And then everything else, you kind of have to tune out and do your thing.

I don't pay attention to a lot of people - I pay attention to a select few, and that's worked out well for me.

I am fundamentally an anthropologist and a rationalist. What I say is that human societies are very different from what specialists call 'animal society' because the former have religion.

At school, everything was left v. right, communists and fascists; what interested me was the discussion of identity, autonomy, federalism, and community.

What I want people to consider is that no matter what it is we want to believe, and no matter what story it is we want to jam the world into, the truth is the truth.

I don't just want to show how somebody might be wrong;I want to know why people believe the things they believe in the first place. I want to understand the mindset that would lead somebody toward the alt-right.

There are a lot of scientists or other people who can be very skeptical or rational within their field, but they may well not do that in other aspects of their lives, when it comes to things like religion, or what have you. People have this amazing gift for being selective with their curiosity and skepticism.

Good intelligence analysis, after all, is all about discrimination between what's important and what's not.

Culture is a reflection of values.

I cannot just blindly love someone.

I'm fascinated that people drawn to cults want to know what to do. And people want to know what to think. And people want to know how to feel. Not just what to feel but how to feel.