Tom Shadyac Thinking Quotations

The word contentment comes from the word content, which is what we hold inside - love, value, a feeling of a life that has meaning or purpose, a cause greater than yourself that you're a part of. These are the things that bring true happiness. As a culture, I think we need to redefine what it means to be happy.

The way I think we were living is an invention. The truth is nobody can own anything. That was an unheard-of concept among indigenous people. We invented that.

We're a young species; We're only 175,000 years old. On the evolutionary scale, life on this planet is 4 billion years old. We're 175,000 years old. So we're trying something out. Who wouldn't think it would be better to have the most stuff to take as much as you could? As we do that, we see why the moral prophets come along and say, don't even store into barns, right? It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. We've seen we plunder nature. We plunder our neighbor. We create enemies because we're against each other.

I think true success is intrinsic... It's love. It's kindness. It's community.

I think laughter is a sacred act.

I wasn't big in the party scene but I did have an excessive lifestyle. I had much more than I needed. I think that was a manifestation of a certain kind of mental illness.