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Nov. 21, 2025 - Dennis Prager Show
52:00
Timeless Wisdom - Courage: What It Is and How to Get It
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Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Hear thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs.
And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com.
I wish to publicly acknowledge my dear friend in Omaha, Joel Alperson.
It was his idea.
He said, Dennis, you talk about courage on the radio so much, but you never have talked about how do you develop it.
And I thought, he's right.
I've never talked about that in my life.
I didn't even systematically think about it, which I really feel embarrassed to say.
So now I've thought about it, and here are the fruits of some of the thought on it.
I always have the most notes for the first time I give a lecture.
So bear with me because it's a very difficult thing because there are people who are born with courage.
Just as, by the way, I had this dilemma with happiness, not for me personally, but in conveying it, in that there are people who were born happy.
Every one of you who has children knows that some come out of the womb, or as I put it, some come out of the womb.
And if they could speak, they would say, oh, thank you for bringing me into this beautiful world.
What a joy to be here.
And others come out of the womb with their middle finger extended.
That is the laughter of recognition, I might add.
So the same with courage.
There are people who were born with courage.
There are people who are born with violin ability.
I mean, there's no denying that we are born with traits.
But if we are only what we're born, we're nothing.
We're automatons.
So as I thought about this and thought about this, I realized there must be a way.
Just as there must be a way for unhappy people to become happier, there's got to be a way for people who don't have built-in courage to become more courageous.
Because if there isn't, we're doomed.
If all we are is living out the traits we're born with, then all education is useless.
I don't mean education in biology or history.
I mean, that's a separate event.
But all moral education is useless.
All wisdom is useless.
So which doesn't make sense.
People improve.
People do.
They work on themselves.
So is there a way to work on oneself to become more courageous?
And the reason it is so significant, which is why I raise the issue so often, is as you probably have heard me say, you know, there are very many kind people and there are very many honest people and loyal people and people with integrity.
But without courage, all the good traits don't add up to much.
I'm sure there were, to use the most famous example of good and evil, certainly in, I guess, the most famous example with regard to Nazi Germany.
Not every German was a terrible human being.
But a very, very few stood up for the Jews who were being torn out of their midst publicly.
Because it takes courage to stand up like Dietrich Bonhoeffer did, the great Protestant minister who was executed by the Nazis at the end of the war.
So this was a rare example.
People need courage or goodness doesn't prevail.
So let's make it clear.
Goodness needs courage.
And I'm talking about courage to do the right thing.
I'm also not talking about a separate arena, physical courage, because a lot of bad people have physical courage.
And a lot of good people, I mean, obviously, and by the way, it's great to have physical courage.
And I will not offer myself as an example of such, by the way.
It is an area where I would like to improve.
I mean, I consider it a victory that I watch while the blood test takes place.
So I just want you to know that I consider a victory in the physical courage realm, and I don't really care about blood tests anymore.
But, you know, that's, by the way, the interesting thing is, just to use that example, whereas every kid cares about a needle, you have to talk yourself into not being afraid of needles in the doctor's office.
That is my belief about courage.
You talk yourself into it.
I will get to that in a moment, but that is my deepest belief about everything.
The only power to influence people that I have is through the mind.
I appeal overwhelmingly to people's minds.
I have deep passions, but my appeal is a mind-based appeal.
And remember, I quote Lincoln all the time on happiness.
We are as happy as we decide to be.
I would like you to think now differently about courage.
Maybe we are as courageous as we decide to be.
Maybe courage is a decision.
See, we live in an age where we don't believe that we can be mind-driven.
Feelings now are predominant.
However you feel is all that matters.
So if you don't feel courageous, well then you're not courageous.
If you don't feel happy, you're not happy.
If you don't feel XYZ, you're not XYZ.
But maybe it doesn't matter how you feel.
Maybe the mind has to be the determinant.
And this is not how people think today.
But I really do believe that the mind has this ability.
You can will courage as you can will happiness.
The happiness I'm certain of because I know it as a fact and I know it from so many people who have told me how what they've heard me say in the happiness hour or in my happiness book or learned elsewhere has changed them with regard to happiness.
Everything is a decision.
That is the greatness of the human.
that everything is, it can be a decision.
You are as good as you decide to be.
Everything is a decision.
It's an amazing thing.
My wife and I visited a, as by coincidence, a rabbi, a Chabat rabbi, in fact, here in Los Angeles who is in the late stage of ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease.
And all he can do is blink.
His mind is as lucid as yours and mind, but all he can do is blink.
And I will be honest with you, I can't say that I was aching to make the visit.
I thought it would be a pretty depressing visit.
I would tell you, my wife is here, I think she would verify, the room with the rabbi, his wife, and kids who came in and out was as happy as any room I have ever visited.
Is there not pain in his life and in his wife's life?
It's a young, vibrant man.
You see him, you know, pictures of playing the guitar with his kids, and now, you know, all he could do was blink.
And he talks to you by blinking into a computer letters.
And the letters form words which are then spoken through a voice machine.
So I had a conversation with a man who could only blink.
He was telling me how much he enjoyed the show.
Let me tell you, that was wonderful.
That was wonderful to hear.
He decided, she decided, you know what she said?
I'm going to have her on the happiness hour.
I keep forgetting to invite her.
But whenever I talk about her, I always have her on.
Do you know what she said to us?
It was fascinating.
In his presence, she said, I know this is going to sound crazy, but I am actually happier since we got afflicted with ALS.
Which sounds bizarre, doesn't it?
But it's not bizarre.
Because she wasn't a happy person.
And now she understood I can only be happy if I decide to be.
She didn't know that before she was hit.
They were hit with this terrible, terrible disease.
So I say to you that this is the number one thing I want to tell you.
You are courageous if you decide to be.
It's willed.
And the stronger your mind can control you rather than your passions and your feelings, the greater a human being you will be.
Also, the happier you will be.
So in light of that, let me talk to you about some tactics to use in enabling your mind to work through the issue of courage.
So let's understand, obviously, courage is needed only when there's fear.
If there's no fear, courage is unnecessary.
Okay, that's obvious.
So then, if that's the case, then the more fears we get rid of, the more courageous we can be.
If, right, you're with me?
It's a very simple, logical step.
If fear produces lack of courage, then less fear produces more courage or enables you to have more courage.
Incidentally, I would like to add something you probably don't know.
The most frequent admonition of God, statement of God to man In the Hebrew Bible, in the Old Testament, is in Hebrew, Al-Tira, do not be afraid.
Isn't that interesting?
That's a very powerful thing to remember.
Okay, so what are the fears that most inhibit?
We're not talking into the physical realm, which inhibits people from skygliding.
Okay, we're not talking about that.
Talking in the rest of life, what are typical fears that produce lack of courage?
Well, number one, a fear of what people will say.
I think that that may be the biggest.
How will people react to me?
Will I lose popularity?
Will I become less liked?
Will people leave my life?
There is a deep fear of speaking out.
How will people react to me?
I'll talk about that, the solution to that, but first let me delineate the layers of fear.
There is fear of monetary loss or professional loss.
As for example, or it's related.
I got this from, believe it or not, a fair number of parents and students have called my show and asked what they should do, what their child should do if it's the parent, or what the child should do if it's the child.
What should I do?
What should my child do?
If my child writes a conservative paper, the liberal professor will probably penalize him or her in the grades.
And they want to get in, if it's high school, they want to get into a prestigious college.
If it's college, they want to graduate high or they want to get into a prestigious graduate school.
So I have answered them as follows.
If you start compromising for grades in college, when will you not compromise later in life?
That is my simple answer.
See, let's understand the price you are paying for your lack of courage may be greater than the price you would pay for courage.
This is what you have to understand.
What is the price payable if a kid really is penalized by a professor for writing things the professor utterly dislikes?
So a poorer grade, they don't graduate to get to the, and they don't get into the school they want, graduate or undergraduate.
So which is the greater price in the long run of life?
Compromising with what you believe or not getting into the most prestigious school?
To me, it's a joke.
To me, there's no comparison.
I am going to compromise my values in order to get into Berkeley, Yale, whatever it is.
You've got to be joking.
That's what matters in the end.
Aside from everything else, it's ludicrous.
It is so wildly overrated how important that is.
Do you know you will find this fascinating?
I find this fascinating.
I've been broadcasting 33 years.
I have been asked on the radio and in email everything about my life, my wife, my birth, you name it.
You hear it on the radio.
Ask me, people ask me, do you know what I have never been asked?
What college did you go to?
Isn't that mind-blowing?
I am talking three hours a day, giving my opinion to shape people's minds, and it has never occurred to them to ask, what college did I go to?
Now, why would that be?
You would think that's the first, who's he to tell, who the hell is he to tell me about X, Y, or Z?
What college did he go to?
It never occurs to anybody.
If I never went to college, they wouldn't know.
I wasn't that lucky, but I did go to college.
Isn't that interesting?
It's so wildly overrated.
But even if it were as important as people think it is, and yes, I acknowledge I live on earth.
I understand that if a law firm is looking to hire young lawyers and it's a prestigious and wealthy law firm, they'll sooner take a Harvard law school graduate than a law school in, you know, that is just a state school, let's say, in some lesser known state.
I acknowledge that.
So fine, so it'll take you longer to make the same amount of money.
But you will have kept your soul and your essence intact by saying what you believe.
Now, you have to learn to say it, and you shouldn't say it in a way that is gratuitously offensive, but you say it.
That's my answer to the, there's a perfect, it's a wonderful example.
So you have the fear, I will be penalized for my opinion.
So I don't have the courage, therefore, to say what my opinion is.
Answer.
Face the consequences on each side squarely in the face.
On the one hand, you have, I won't get, I may not get into pen.
On the other hand, you have, I will compromise what I believe.
Which is the greater price?
Okay, to me, it's a non-issue.
To anybody here, I'll bet you it is a non-issue.
When you put it in that perspective, but you need perspective.
That's why this whole talk is to appeal to your mind.
Very often the fears don't match anything near what you pay for not having courage.
That's why it's almost worth making a list.
What is the worst that could happen?
By the way, that is one of my themes in the happiness hour.
I've always said to people, you should always ask, what's the worst thing that could happen?
And things become a lot more manageable in that way.
And by the way, for Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the price wasn't that he didn't get into Berkeley.
The price was that he got killed by the Nazis.
And for any non-Jew who saved a Jew in the Holocaust, not all of them were killed because they weren't caught, but those who were, especially in Poland, were killed.
But I think, believe it or not, I think in the final analysis, and I certainly don't judge anybody on those matters, I have no idea how I would have acted, and I'm not judging anyone.
But I do believe that in some philosophical way, even death, which is a lot worse than not getting into Yale, Even death should not force one to compromise one's courage.
That's truly a matter for each person to work through, but the vast majority of cases of courage demanded in America have nothing to do with death.
You're not going to lose your life.
You may lose your popularity.
You may lose some friends.
But if your friends are your friends because you have to hide who you are, they're not your friends.
They're your shell, the friends of your shell, not the friends of you.
I fully understand not confronting children, parents, and brothers and sisters with political views so as to keep family life loving and spouse too.
I fully understand that because I am a big believer in peace in the house.
But with friends, relatives you're given, friends you choose.
If you have to hide who you are from friends, they're not your friends.
It's definitional.
That's the whole point of a friend, is that you can say what you believe.
So to get rid of fears, you have to first acknowledge what the fear is.
Fear of what people will say, fear of monetary loss, fear of professional loss.
These are the fears that people have that inhibit their courage.
It's not worth it.
You know, I debated whether to use myself as an example because I feel almost bad.
I'm no paragon of courage.
But the only life I know as well as mine is me.
So I have to give you examples from my life, not because I'm a paragon of courage, but to give you examples where I have confronted this issue.
So I will tell you, I paid a very steep price for being outspoken as a conservative because my life was until the age of well, I started radio at the age of 32, but my 34, whatever it was, and 34.
But my life until then professionally was completely within Jewish life.
I wrote two books on Judaism.
I was the head of a Jewish institute.
And I was the third most widely booked lecturer in American Jewish life because of my book on Judaism, which was so popular.
My book on anti-Semitism, which was widely read.
And I was young and I was capable of making good case for Judaism.
So Reform, conservative, Orthodox synagogues would have me.
And I was the third most widely booked lecturer in American Jewish life.
And that was a serious part of my income till about the age of 40.
And then I, not that I was waiting and hiding, but when I had really worked through my philosophy of life and was given a national radio show, or at least a radio show that discussed political issues, I remember thinking, this is it.
I'm going to lose my speaking because Jews are liberal and they're not going to book me anymore.
And to a large extent, that's exactly what happened.
The more prominent I became nationally, the more unbooked I got Jewishly.
And it was sad to me.
Not sad financially, it was in the beginning, it was a hit.
But I remember I can't think of that in terms of what I will say.
I have to say what I truly believe.
And now I write for the Jewish Journal, a Los Angeles-based Jewish newspaper.
And you really don't have any idea unless you read it the amount of hatred that is directed toward me.
I don't mean disagreement.
I mean hatred.
Because a conservative in Jewish life is like a conservative in black life.
You're a traitor.
You are beyond just wrong.
You are a traitor.
And it's very depressing because I expect better of Jews.
Not because Jews are better than anyone.
I just expect better of the people that I identify in the same religion with.
Catholics expect better from Catholics and Presbyterians expect better from Presbyterians and that's just the norm in life.
But it is depressing.
And when I write my pieces that I know will engender hatred, it does take some courage.
But I say to myself, what's the worst that could happen?
And the answer is, I'll get hated.
Okay, that's the worst that could happen.
I'm still a happy guy.
I still have my family and friends.
I still have my health.
I still have my show.
I mean, what am I complaining about?
It's sad that it happens, but the price of shutting up is so much greater than the price of losing popularity or whatever you might lose.
And you all have this in some arena of life.
That's the reason more people aren't courageous because they're afraid of the reactions that they will get.
Or at least that's part of the reason.
So it's very important.
I care about the reactions of people whom I respect.
That's very important.
There it is important.
If people you deeply respect, not love, that's a separate issue.
People you deeply respect turn against you, then it is worth looking inside.
What have I done?
Maybe, you know, was my respect for them misplaced or am I doing something wrong?
That's fair.
The mirror of our character is the people we attract to our lives.
The mirror of our mind is our writing.
The mirror of our body is a physical mirror.
The mirror of our character are the people we attract to us.
So that's an important thing.
But if it's people that you don't respect and they are the ones who are angry at you, then take a position and that's okay.
How many people do you need in your life?
But it is a price, but there's no reason to pursue popularity.
Popularity is not a wonderful aim.
It doesn't mean a thing.
Remember in high school who the kids who were most popular?
Were they the finest kids in the class?
Very rarely.
I'll never forget it was one of the great revelatory moments of my life as a male when the jerks got the gorgeous girls.
I didn't understand.
Where was God?
I didn't understand.
It was a philosophical, theological quandary to me.
This putz is getting the cheerleader.
I can't believe it.
Is he an idiot?
The answer is yes.
That's right, because he's a jerk.
But every guy, every decent guy basically goes through this.
didn't have the lines to talk them up or as they say to chat them up.
My opening lines were pathetic.
In my 20s, a girl says, oh, and what do you do?
Oh, I lecture on ethical monotheism.
God, is that sexy?
Oh, wow.
I don't remember one girl who thought, wow, that's wonderful.
Tell me more about it.
So, you know, you just, this is the way of life, popular.
How does pop, the kids, you don't pursue popularity.
Now, don't pursue gratuitous hatred.
That's not good either.
But popularity as an end is a terrible thing.
The people who want to see their names up on marquees, they lead a miserable life.
Remember my old, I have a great saying, it's based on something I once heard from Bill Bennett, but I modified it, but I want to give him credit.
But this is very important saying, the famous are rarely significant, and the significant are rarely famous.
If you remember that, and that's a question you should teach your kids: Do you want to be significant or do you want to be famous?
Kids tell me they want to be famous.
There's a big thing.
So, you know what I always ask them?
I mean, we're talking about seventh graders, fifth graders.
What do you want to be famous?
So, you know what my immediate response is?
Famous for what?
And they say, it doesn't matter.
So, I say, if you're famous for the number of hot dogs eaten, that's great.
They'll mean the Guinness Book of Records.
That's fine.
It's not even, I want to be, it's the last thing I want to be famous for curing cancer.
It doesn't occur to them.
So, the popularity thing is not an end worth compromising your courage for.
That's my point here.
It's not, popularity is not, to say the least, a moral value.
And as I said, ask yourself, what is the worst thing that can happen?
If I do take a stand, if I am courageous, what's the worst thing that can happen?
And then at least confront it.
And you may then conclude the price is not worth it.
I'm not here to judge you at all.
I'm just here for you to say you have to ask yourself that question.
Because if it's really do I stand up for what I believe, do I stand up for another person who is being hurt?
Or if I don't do so at the price of my, you know, that's the famous Mephistopheles issue, Dr. Faustus, who sold his soul to the devil.
That's the whole analogy.
And then number three, be honest with yourself.
What am I doing or not doing because of fear?
It's really worth asking and even writing down, what am I doing or not doing because of fear?
After all, fear obviously is the mother of lack of courage.
So we have to work through the issue of getting rid of the things that we are compromising our courage for.
Next is how do you do this?
That's the methodology.
Here is a how.
In addition to asking yourself, is it worth the compromise on courage?
Here's another thing to remember.
You have to fear something else more than what you fear that is inhibiting your courage.
The most obvious example is God.
Why are we told to fear God?
By the way, it's amazing to me that the age in which we live, you know how many modern translations say revere God and not fear God?
The Hebrew is clear.
It has an element of reverence, but it's now it's not fear.
There are two words in Hebrew for fear.
One is pachad and one is ira.
And the pachad is where you're just quaking with fear.
That's scared.
One is like scared and one is fear.
Yes, there should be a fear.
And let me tell you, because there's another fear that it's worth having.
Fear of parents.
You're told to fear God and told to fear parents, and it's the exact same verb in the Hebrew, by the way.
The exact same verb.
When the midwives did not kill the Hebrew boys that were born when Pharaoh said kill all newborn boy babies, the midwives, it said, that the midwives feared God.
If it just, it doesn't mean revered God.
They feared God because they feared Pharaoh too, but they feared God more than Pharaoh.
That's the beauty of fear of God.
If you fear God and you really do, then you will do the right thing.
I'm talking about the God of the Ten Commandments, the God of the Bible, not some newfangled God, but that God.
If you fear God, that's huge.
I can't tell you how huge it is.
I really believe, though, that most people who say they believe in God don't really believe in God in the sense that I understand, and I think the Bible understands believe in God.
Because the obvious thing is, oh, really?
Then why do you compromise so often on things that you know that God wouldn't look positively on?
I don't know how Christians went along with Hitler.
I don't know.
And by the way, Europe has paid a terrible price because I am totally convinced that the decline of Christianity in Europe is related to the lack of Christian opposition to Hitler.
We paid a terrible price.
Jews paid a terrible price, obviously, but the West has paid a terrible price because the post-Christian world is terrible.
It's lost.
Europe is lost.
When religious people don't take their religion seriously, and I think it's true for a lot of people, seriously means that you fear God more than you fear man.
That's the whole point of fearing God.
If you fear man more than you fear God, then you don't really believe in God.
You believe in a celestial butler sort of way, but not in the real way that matters.
Where is the upshot to your fear of God?
It has to be, I fear God, I have to answer to God.
It's never talked about today, because all that people talk about is God's love, God's love, God's love.
But which, by the way, is a very, very complex question.
But this is not complex.
Fear God.
It's a good thing.
It's a good thing to fear parents.
Do you know when I ask teenagers or young people post-teenager, why did you never take drugs?
Do you know the most common answer I get?
Because my mother would have killed me.
That's a great answer.
That's the right answer.
Ta-da, you win.
That's correct.
What other answer are they going to give?
Because I read books on the effects of heroin?
I mean, give me a break.
You don't do it because you're afraid your mother will kill you.
That's exactly right.
And that's the right terminology.
This notion of fear is unbelievably important and almost never discussed in religious circles because it's so counter to our lovey-dovey way of approaching God, which has no moral uplift.
It has no, it's generally, it feels good, but it doesn't do much good.
If you fear God, then you won't fear man.
And I have to say that that plays a huge role in my own life.
I really do believe I have to answer to God every day, and ultimately when I die, I really do believe that.
Now, an atheist will think, you know, does he believe in unicorns too?
That's fine.
But not enough religious people believe that.
That we have to answer to.
I first realized this when I was a bachelor in my 20s.
I didn't marry first until I was 32, and I interviewed, not on radio, I didn't have a radio show, but I interview people having nothing to do with radio.
I interview people on the elevator.
I just ask people about their lives all the time.
I love when people tell me about their lives.
And so there was a man I worked with.
He was about, I'd say, 15 years older than me.
And he was a married man, had kids, and he was not a religious guy.
So in a private conversation once, I said, Bob, I said, you know, obviously you don't have to answer my question, but you know I'll never speak a word of this or hint a word.
Have you always been faithful to your wife?
And he said this follows.
He said, Dennis, this is going to interest you.
You know, I'm not a religious guy.
He was a Jewish guy, but he's not religious.
He was ethnically Jewish, but it didn't mean anything.
He had an ex-marine.
He was essentially assimilated guy.
And he said, Dennis, this is going to interest you and even perplex you, but believe it or not, I have never been unfaithful.
And believe me, I've had a lot of opportunities, which I totally believe.
He's a good-looking guy.
He's an intelligent guy, successful, traveled.
So he said, but what you won't believe is the reason I have it.
So I'm sitting there, bated breath.
And he goes, because, believe it or not, I think God's going to punish me if I do.
And he was like embarrassed to admit it because he was completely irreligious, but he knew it was one of the Ten Commandments, do not commit adultery.
So that was it.
And I obviously remember it all these years later because it made such an impact on me.
These things matter.
If you think you have to answer to a God who has a series of rules to which you answer, that's very inducing of both good behavior and courageous behavior.
So this, this, the only way or one of the only ways to get rid of the fears that inhibit your courage is to have bigger fears than the ones that inhibit your courage.
You need fears that give you courage.
Fear of God gives you courage.
Fear of man makes you cowardly.
That's the way it works.
It's a big deal, and again, it's just not addressed.
Fear of parents, similarly, and it's, you know, honor your parents is in the Ten Commandments.
Parents is a very big deal.
Parents are like God's representatives on earth.
You have a father in heaven and you have a father on earth.
Ideally.
And by the way, the kids who don't have a father on earth, if they have a father in heaven, it can compensate tremendously.
You know, the big, you all know, I assume the biggest single problem where there is an immense amount of crime in the inner cities of the United States is the lack of fathers.
But it's a double whammy because they also don't have a father in heaven.
The kids without a father on earth who have a father in heaven have a real good chance at a stable life.
But if you don't have either, it's a double whammy.
And if you have both, it's just the best.
It's just terrific.
And there's another fear that I would advocate that can overcome the fear that makes you less courageous.
And that is fear of facing yourself in the mirror.
That's a good one.
Because when people who saved Jews in the Holocaust were asked, why did you do it?
It's amazing how not one of them thought they were heroic.
It's fascinating.
I've read, there aren't many books, believe it or not.
There were tens of thousands of books on evil.
There were very few books on goodness, which is a very unfortunate thing because we should study goodness even more than evil.
Because the question is, how do you make good people, not how do you make evil people?
But they would be asked this, and they would just say all sorts of things.
Some did it obviously for the religious reasons I just mentioned, and others would just say, because I couldn't live with myself if I didn't.
So in other words, the fear of not being able to live with themselves was greater than the fear of being caught by the Nazis.
See, there were good fears to have, and there are bad fears to have.
And good fears can conquer the bad fears.
And that's how you can develop courage.
And these are things that can truly be done.
It's just the most important thing with this, I will wrap up because I not only spoke for a while, but I also want to have a lot of time for you to ask questions.
And look, if it's the first time I've talked about it, I'm sure it's the first time you've heard about it in most cases.
So if there aren't a ton of questions on it, I understand that because you have to assimilate it.
It's a lot to assimilate.
And I hope that I have recorded the talk and you can then get it from my website because it's a very important thing and it's good for your children to hear.
But if there was one thing that has to be the overriding message, it is that you can be courageous.
It's not a matter of you weren't born courageous.
Very few people are born courageous.
They're very, very rare.
There are probably more people who were born with great musical ability than there are people born with courage.
Courage, for most people, is fought for.
And you just have to overcome it.
I know I developed an interesting attitude, which also may help you.
You know, I get very often people like you, obviously, who are, I think, for the most part, positively predisposed to me.
I will get very loving comments from people.
And some people meet me, my wife hears this all the time when we're walking somewhere and somebody comes over, oh, Dennis Zone.
I just want to say, I love you, but you always hear that.
So they often add that, ah, but you always hear that.
And so I always tell them, well, not really.
If you just put in Google Dennis Prager and please forgive me, Rabbi, asshole, you will get tens of thousands of hits.
So it's just not true that all I hear is I love him.
So what, this is what I, very early in life, develop, and I commend it to your attention because it's very powerful.
It's a very effective thing.
It's worked on me.
And that is, this is the way I put it.
I do not, people ask me, how come all these attacks don't hurt me?
They think I have, you know, there's this, like, this Teflon back that things bounce off.
But, you know, I'm a human.
You know, reading how evil I am is not pleasant.
But it doesn't particularly make me lose sleep.
That is true.
But there is a reason.
And this is the reason.
I adopted this very early in my public life.
I do not let the insults go to my heart because I do not let the compliments go to my head.
And that is, you can't have one without the other.
If the compliments give you a swelled head, then the insults will give you a heart attack.
And you have to take all in stride.
So it's all mind-based.
You really are, we really are, your kids really are as courageous as they decide to be.
And with this listing of things, I really do believe that a serious percentage of people can develop the single most important trait to making a better world, courage.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
I really do hope you'll help, we'll be able to put it up and you'll can hear it again because it's too much to remember.
And it's too much for me to remember.
If I give this talk again, I have to take notes again, until I can finally memorize these things.
But they're a big deal, and it makes you in the best sense feel better about yourself.
This self-esteem movement has been a fraud.
It's a terrible fraud.
Kids need self-control, not self-esteem.
But in the deepest, best sense of the word, not in an arrogant way, not in an adulatory way.
Listen, if Dietrich Bonhoeffer did not go at his execution feeling some degree of pride in what he had made himself as a human, then there's something wrong in life.
He should.
If he's thinking clearly, he should.
I want people who do good and courageous things to think well of what they have done.
In the meantime, you know who thinks well about themselves?
Murderers.
Roy Baumeister, one of the leading criminologists in America, I've had on my show.
He's written many books.
I've had him on my show a number of times.
And the guy blew my mind when he told me, Dennis, you know who had the highest self-image, greatest self-image in America?
Murderers.
He lives with them.
You have to think you're the center of the universe to be able to take an innocent person's life.
I am Boston.
You are nothing, right?
You couldn't do it because you know that that person is as valuable as you are.
They don't think that way.
Isn't that amazing?
It's hard for you and me to imagine.
You don't think that way, that's right.
Let me leave you with just a wish for you that you fight.
America is worth fighting for.
Judaism and Christianity are worth fighting for.
The religious bases of our country are worth fighting for.
And, you know, I know I was going to say this in the middle of my speech, and I thought maybe it's too dark.
So I shouldn't end with so dark, but it's real.
Here's the news.
It's like I used to say to people, I said this many years ago, I'll never forget.
You know, I just read a medical article on the internet.
And, well, it wouldn't have been the internet then, but I just read a medical article.
And they concluded that no matter how much you jog, you will still die.
I haven't said that in so many years on the radio.
I don't know why.
I still don't jog, so I should say it.
But anyway, we are going to die anyway.
So the question is not, did you die?
The question will be, did you live?
And I want to be proud of the guy who's leaving the world.
And I want those who knew me to be proud of that.
So I never bought playing it safe as a good way to live life.
It's like I tell people, you know, I don't want on my tombstone, what is it?
You know, he was, oh yes, he lived a pain-free life.
The purpose of life is not to avoid pain.
It's not to seek pain either, but it's not to avoid pain.
But if you start fighting, it's very powerful.
And you know what?
There is a great bonus to it.
You meet the best people.
And that's worth everything.
Thank you so much for coming.
Thank you all.
Thank you all.
Thank you.
Thank you, everybody.
I have no trouble signing out there.
This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
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