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I grew up in a very secular home with no religion at all, so I was starting from zero.

A. J. Jacobs

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A. J. Jacobs
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: March 20
Journalist
Writer
New York City
New York
AJ Jacobs
Arnold Steven Jacobs
Jr.
Honey K Balani
Honey K. Balani
A.J. Jacobs
A J Jacobs
Arnold Stephen Jacobs
Jr.
Zero
Starting
Grew
Religion
Home
Secular

More quotes by A. J. Jacobs

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How do you gag the voice in your head that says, 'You don't have to [do it] today. There's always tomorrow.'?
A. J. Jacobs
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A loud noise will get your fight-or-flight response going. This, over the years, can cause real cardiovascular damage.
A. J. Jacobs
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Probably 90 percent of our life decisions are powered by the twin engines of inertia and laziness.
A. J. Jacobs
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I was very good at sitting. But I just read so much research about how horrible sitting is for you. It's like, it's really bad. It's like Paula-Deen-glazed-bacon-doughnut bad. So I now move around as much as possible.
A. J. Jacobs
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It comes back to the old question: How can the Bible be so wise in some places and so barbaric in others? And why should we put any faith in a book that includes such brutality?
A. J. Jacobs
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I don't believe that prayers actually change God's mind - if there is a God - but I liked praying for people in need. It was like moral weightlifting. I tend to be self-obsessed, and it was nice to get out of my brain once in a while.
A. J. Jacobs
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Unconditional love is an illogical notion, but such a great and powerful one.
A. J. Jacobs
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The Bible improved my ethical IQ. I started to act like a good person. I tried not to gossip, and lie, and covet, and just by pretending I was a good person, I think I actually became a little bit better of a person. I'm not Gandhi or Angelina Jolie, but it was a baby step.
A. J. Jacobs
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I've started to look at life differently. When you're thanking God for every little you - every meal, every time you wake up, every time you take a sip of water - you can't help but be more thankful for life itself, for the unlikely and miraculous fact that you exist at all.
A. J. Jacobs
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When I was with the serpent-handlers in Tennessee, it was the most bizarre method of worship I could think of. Yet when you sit with these people, you can kind of see how it makes sense.
A. J. Jacobs
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Very few people changed the world by sitting on their couch.
A. J. Jacobs
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Sometimes miracles occur only when you jump in.
A. J. Jacobs
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If my former self and my current self met for coffee, they'd get along OK, but they'd both probably walk out of the Starbucks shaking their heads and saying to themselves, “That guy is kinda delusional.”
A. J. Jacobs
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Its sort of my job to feel good.
A. J. Jacobs
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I found there were things about religion that I really loved things like the sense of gratefulness that it brings.
A. J. Jacobs
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I tried the paleo diet, which is the caveman diet - lots of meat. I tried the raw food vegan diet. And I tried the calorie restriction diet, which is the idea is that if you eat very, very little - if you're on the verge of starvation, you will live a very long time. Whether or not you want to, of course, is the idea.
A. J. Jacobs
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Med students panic their first year when they learn all the diseases. It's not until the second year that they learn the cures.
A. J. Jacobs
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My immune system has always been overly welcoming of germs. It's far too polite, the biological equivalent of a southern hostess inviting y'all nice microbes to stay awhile and have some artichoke dip.
A. J. Jacobs
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The World Health Organization ... estimated that 1.6 million years of healthy living are lost every year in Europe because of noise pollution.
A. J. Jacobs
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I’m not a fan of ‘write what you know.’ If you don’t know, find out. I knew nothing about the Bible before I started writing ‘The Year of Living Biblically.’ That was kind of the point – to learn.
A. J. Jacobs