“With prolonged and repeated exposure to pleasurable stimuli, our capacity
to tolerate pain decreases, and our threshold for experiencing pleasure
increases.”
Source: Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
“Knowledge is responsibility, which is why people resist knowledge.”
“The paradox is that hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake,
leads to anhedonia, which is the inability to enjoy pleasure of any kind.”
Source: Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
“Human beings, the ultimate seekers, have
responded too well to the challenge of pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain.
As a result, we’ve transformed the world from a place of scarcity to a place
of overwhelming abundance.”
Source: Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
“Microdoses of nourishing, pleasurable habits spread through the other areas of your life like rainbows at a Dolly Parton concert.”
Source: The Habit Trip: A Fill-in-the-Blank Journey to a Life on Purpose
“There is a pleasure in being with them,' he says. 'Taking what we want, indulging in every terrible thought. There's safety in being awful.”
Source: The Cruel Prince
“I think of his horror at his own desire when I brought my mouth to his, the dagger in my hand, edge against his skin. The toe-curling, corrosive pleasure of that kiss. It felt as though I was punishing him- punishing him and myself at the same time.
I hated him so much.”
Source: The Wicked King
“There is always some happy and interesting thing happening, and I shall have two pleasures each time, my own enjoyment, and getting to tell you of them.”
Source: Letters of a Woman Homesteader
“The more dopamine a drug releases in the brain’s reward
pathway (a brain circuit that links the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus
accumbens, and the prefrontal cortex), and the faster it releases dopamine,
the more addictive the drug.”
Source: Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
“With repeated exposure to the same or similar pleasure stimulus, the initial
deviation to the side of pleasure gets weaker and shorter and the after-
response to the side of pain gets stronger and longer, a process scientists call
neuroadaptation.”
Source: Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence