Timeless Wisdom: Ultimate Issues Hour - The Dangers of Utopian Visions
In this Ultimate Issues Hour episode of the Dennis Prager Show, host Dennis Prager argues that the human drive to create a perfect society—what he calls utopian thinking—inevitably leads to tyranny, violence, and societal collapse. He surveys historical and contemporary examples, from the French Revolution, Soviet communism, and Nazi Germany to modern Islamist movements and small religious cults, showing how the promise of a flawless world justifies murder, repression, and abuse. Prager contends that objective morality, grounded in God and Judeo‑Christian values, is essential to prevent such chaos; without an external moral anchor, societies drift into relativism where emotions dictate right and wrong. He contrasts this with a pragmatic, incremental approach to improvement, praising the U.S. constitutional system of checks and balances as a realistic acknowledgment of human flaw. Throughout the program, callers share personal experiences of cults and utopian projects, reinforcing his claim that utopian visions attract manipulation and suffering. The episode also promotes Prager’s book If There Is No God and other products, but the core narrative is a warning: pursue modest, realistic reforms rather than impossible perfection.
Chapters
Your dog and a stranger are drowning. You can only save one. Who do you choose? Dennis Prager says your answer reveals everything about how you define right and wrong. In his new book, If There Is No God, Prager exposes the danger of emotion-based morality and why without objective truth, society descends into chaos. This isn't a religious book. It's a rational case for moral clarity in a confused age. If There Is No God from Dennis Prager. Order now at pragerstore.com. Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to dennisprager.com. On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom.
The subject is that the pursuit of a perfect world, of a perfect society, produces hell. The examples are legion where people have this vision, "Oh, if we only remake society in the image that I can imagine it, then, then it will be great. It will be perfect. People will love each other.
It will be a beautiful world." That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager, and it starts right now.
And welcome to the Ultimate Issues Hour on the Dennis Prager Show. I devote this hour each week to some great issue of life, trying to explain the world, whether it's going to be a great micro or a great macro issue. And today is a, a major, major one. About why one major reason there is so much bad in the world, and ironically, or it may sound ironic, it may not be, it is because human nature dreams of a perfect place. We dream of a perfect world, and it's called utopia. And all utopian visions have led to hell on earth. That's the subject: how utopian visions lead to hell on earth. Heaven is available in the next world. Heaven is not available in this world. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to improve it. Oh, we should all the time try to improve the world But improve the world does not mean make it perfect. We cannot make it even close to perfect. That is not available to us on this planet. And the, the beliefs that people have had— and this has afflicted religious people, and this has afflicted secular people. As it happens, it's afflicted secular people even more than religious people because the religions have tended to defer heaven to the next life and have acknowledged you can't have a heaven on this earth. It's just understood it's not available to us. There may have been a Garden of Eden, but we have long since left it and we don't return to it. Now, I'm not talking theology, I'm talking about real life. And I don't want you to call in with theology calls, it's not even the subject. The subject is that the pursuit of a perfect world, of a perfect society, produces hell. The examples are legion where people have this vision, "Oh, if we only remake society in the image that I can imagine it, then, then it will be great. It will be perfect. People will love each other." It will be a beautiful world. The contemporary version of this, the most powerful one, is the Islamists. Their view that if the world is under the rule of Sharia, the world, not just their societies, starts with their societies, is under the rule of Islamic world, then people will love each other. You read their literature, this is— they blow up people in the name of love. But this was done by the communists. They blew up people in the name of love. In the name of progress. In the name of your vision of perfection, you can do anything you want, and people do anything they want. The French Revolution did it. They had a view of a perfect society after the French Revolution. The communists had a view of a perfect society. Period. I know Russian, and I was in the Soviet Union a number of times. And I was in communist countries and they would have, oh, all of this about the new Soviet man. Novi sovietski cheloviek. The new Soviet man. And they would— did you ever see Nazi or communist sculptures of these, you know, the great perfect bodies, men and women, looking forward, looking up, thrilled to be on a tractor? It's called socialist realism. In other words, it had nothing to do with reality. It was a socialist reality. It was the reality of their vision. People have these visions of remaking the world in the light of their system, and then evil will end and they will be happy. They are unhappy in the flawed world in which we live. Contrast that to the founders of the United States who understood that human beings are terribly flawed. So what you have is you have an executive that has a check on the legislature that has a check on the executive, and you have a judiciary that has a check on the legislature and a check on the executive, but the executive is the one that ultimately can put into power the members of the judiciary. In other words, everybody checks everybody. Because the founders of this country knew there is no utopia. The human being is too deeply flawed. Utopias are impossible. Do you remember these cults? What are cults, folks? What are cults? What we call cults, they are little utopias. Jim Jones made a utopia for his followers until he gave them Kool-Aid and died. Any one of these, it was— I'm always suspicious about these cults. It's because 90% of the time you end up hearing about how the cult leader has told all these young women that to make this heavenly world, they have to sleep with him. Remember that? Every time. I am convinced that's why these guys make these cults, was to get young women into bed. Because that's what always happened. And these young women, oh, for the sake of our utopia, of course, please take me. People will do anything for the sake of a utopia. They will murder, they will give their bodies over, they will give their minds over. The human being aches for— I was going to say lusts for, and that may be the better verb— for a perfect world because this one is so imperfect. The further left you go in the secular world, the more you will get this as well, as some If we just have more and more, the government will solve these problems and we will be taken care of from our birth to our death. We will have a lot of time off from our work so that we can enjoy the arts and enjoy the non-material pursuits of life. They have a total utopian vision. That's why it's okay to take more and more power into their hands because they are going to make a beautiful world compared to the crappy world that America, for example, now is. 1-800-PRAGER-776. 1-800-PRAGER-776. If you have any questions or your own thoughts on this issue, do you have your own belief that there could be a perfect or nearly perfect world on this earth? Tell me, tell me about it. Maybe you have such a vision. I have no vision. The only vision I have is of people improving the world bit by bit. That's why I believe, for example, that revolutions don't work. I'm not talking about revolution against foreign occupation like the US against Britain. But internal revolutions don't work. Evolutions work. The Russian Revolution didn't work. The French Revolution didn't work. They made things worse. Evolution works. That's why I have always answered people's attacks on the Bible for not abolishing slavery. The abolition of slavery 3,000 years ago when the Torah was written— this is what we're talking about, the beginnings of the Bible, the first 5 books known as the Torah. There was universal slavery, and what the Torah did was humanize the institution so that of its own it would die out and teach the principle that all creatures are in God's image. It made it impossible to return a slave to its owner, which immediately renders slavery impossible the way we know, because the slave— you would know the slave could run away if you maltreated him. But it didn't say there's no such thing as— that's utopian. What it did was it evolutionarily got rid of slavery. This has been a yearning, and if you have such a yearning, do you have or do you know someone perhaps in your own life, secular, religious, left, right, who has a sort of picture of a perfect America, of a perfect society that they would like us to change to. 1-8-Prager-776. Do you want to know the major flaw in the leftist critique of America? Is that America— they compare America to a utopia, not to other countries. They have a vision of a country with no racism, and no inequality. But there will always be some people who will be racist. People are not good. A lot of people are not good. America is not a racist country, but it's a country that has racists. So is that— yes, that's imperfect. 1-800-PRAGER-776 is 877-243-7776. The visions of a perfect world in this world and the hell that they always produce. I'll give you more religious and secular examples and take your calls. This is the Ultimate Issues Hour on the Dennis Prager Show.
This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. Your beloved dog and a stranger are both drowning. You can only save one. Who do you save? Every time Dennis Prager asks that question, his audience splits three ways. One-third chooses the dog, one-third chooses the stranger, and one-third aren't sure. Why? Because we live in an age where increasingly feelings define right and wrong. But if morality is based on emotion, then murder, rape, and theft are just opinions. And if people feel justified, why is rioting or destruction wrong at all? In his new book, If There Is No God, Dennis Prager explains why civilizations cannot survive without objective morality and why Judeo-Christian values shape the moral foundations of the free world.
If you claim that certain things are good, certain things are evil, independent of how you feel about it, you are in effect affirming God.
If There Is No God by Dennis Prager, available now at PragerStore.com. That's PragerStore.com. Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.
You're listening to the Dennis Prager Show. This is the Ultimate Issues Hour. I'm talking to you about the dangers, the horrible dangers of utopian thinking, of thinking that we can make a perfect society or a perfect world. The left has it, the right has had it, the religion— some religionists have it, the secular have it. And it's a major factor today in two places: on the secular left and among Islamists. That's where it is now. 50, 60, 70 years ago, it was the Nazi and the Communist utopian visions. The French Revolution had a utopian vision. 1-800-PRAGER-776. I'll explain more and more as this goes on, and it's It's very helpful in life to know that that is not available. Heaven is not available on Earth. Just know that heaven is not available on Earth. There are heavenly moments listening to my show. That was self-deprecating human humor, folks. It was not a boast. We go to Denver, Colorado, and Loyal, is that your name?
Uh, yes, Dennis Prager, uh, is that really a great pleasure to talk to you?
Wow, thank you, that's kind. Thank you.
Wow. So, um, you know, you— it's funny, you, uh, you were talking about the, uh, whole idea about how, uh, utopias, uh, are end up turning life into a miserable hell for everybody. And well, that's exactly what happened. And then you talked about, uh how, you know, that relates to cults. And I was like, bingo, that's exactly what happened to me. I mean, I'm 31 years old today, and, you know, I look back at, you know, when I was living in that cult, and it was just— I have a real hard time coming up with any good memories. And the whole thing was meant to make our lives better, but it didn't.
What sort of cult was it?
It's, um, it was like a small religious, uh, like Christian cult. And, uh, like, you know, everything comes, you know, uh, was owned by the cult. You know, all of your whole paycheck was basically signed over. You live in the, the, um, you know, community-owned property.
It's kind of stalling as hell, but all, all of these commune type things, uh, nearly all have this utopian streak in them, and they end up, uh, they end up hurting people. So, so what was the— what— so what was the— what was the basis of this, that if you led a Christian communist life, it worked?
Yeah, well, they, they seem to believe that the original Christians lived communally, so they had to kind of go back to the original pure kind of—
so, all right, good. So why was it— why was it hellish?
Um, there is just no freedom of thought, no freedom of expression, um, no ability to improve your own life. Um, and, uh, you know, there's always somebody who you don't trust, um, controlling all of your time, all of your, um, everything. You just don't really exist as an individual. Um, and eventually you feel like you're about to be extinguished.
Did the cult leader sleep with the women?
Um, I, I really don't want to talk about that.
Why?
Um, I should honor my mother and my father.
Because you should honor your father and mother. Okay.
Yeah.
Well, no, but okay. And they would know that, and they would know that you called.
Uh, no, but I just, um, okay, it's a very painful topic and we, we could leave it, um.
All right, and we will. All right. All right, we will leave it at that and I thank you. But I infer from the response that my generalization is accurate. The cult leaders are manipulating people's desire to have a great society. Hitler did it. We will have, we will clean out the undesirables. Notice too, by the way, that that the utopian has a lot of undesirables. There's a very long list of undesirable people, whether it's sinners or heretics or what have you. It's a very major part of it. See, what is it in humans that gravitates towards a utopia? It is the loathing of how messy life is. Part of growing up, and people don't like to grow up, it is a very hard thing to grow up, but part of growing up is to acknowledge that life is messy. That's the way it is, both in the personal realm and in the macro realm. The reason that I fear all this tinkering and tampering with American institutions in the name of making the place even better and better and, and more equal and less racist and more just and more this, is that I know how good this country is compared to other places, and that if we tamper too much with our institutions, we will collapse. I've never compared the United States to a utopian vision. Never. I compare it to other places. People do this on the micro level. They compare their spouse perhaps to a utopian spouse. Of course, they don't compare, they don't really know a better person living who would be a better wife or a better husband, but they don't compare them to a living husband or wife. They compare them to an imaginary husband or wife. Who had all of the good things of this one and all of the good things of this one and all of the good things of this one. I remember when I was a bachelor in my premarital years, and I remember talking to male friends, and we would all speak about, oh God, well, if she— I know who I want to marry. Someone with her personality, her looks, her brains, her body, And then I got, I got, that's my woman. I would combine, you know, the guys would combine 4 women. And women do this to men. Oh, his ambition, his energy, his kindness, his sensitivity, his money. So the utopian streak in the human being, oh, there is something perfect out there, is micro. As much as macro. 1-800-PRAGER-776 is the number. We go to San Francisco where there are a lot of utopians. Clay, hello Clay, Dennis Prager.
Hi Dennis, I just wanted to make one comment that my understanding is the word utopia was coined by Sir Thomas More in his work called Utopia back in the 1500s in England, and that he took the word from Greek and it means no place.
I didn't— I knew the, uh, the Sir Thomas More, but I didn't know that that's what it meant. No play. That's terrific. If that's true, that's terrific. If it's not true, you're— I'm coming after you.
Thank you, Dennis.
I normally don't get that reaction. 1-800-PRAGER-776 is the number. 877- 243-7776. The Dennis Prager Show, the ultimate issues hour.
This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. Your beloved dog and a stranger are both drowning. You can only save one. Who do you save? Every time Dennis Prager asks that question, his audience splits 3 ways. One-third chooses the dog, one-third chooses the stranger, and one-third aren't sure why. Because we live in an age where increasingly feelings define right and wrong. But if morality is based on emotion, then murder, rape, and theft are just opinions. And if people feel justified, why is rioting or destruction wrong at all? In his new book, If There Is No God, Dennis Prager explains why civilizations cannot survive without objective morality and why Judeo-Christian values shape the moral foundations of the free world.
If you claim that certain things are good, certain things are evil, independent of how you feel about it, you are in effect affirming God.
If There Is No God by Dennis Prager, available now at PragerStore.com. That's PragerStore.com. Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.
Hey everybody, you're listening to The Dennis Prager Show, the Ultimate Issues Hour, the hour each week which I devote to some great issue of life. And anybody who promises you a perfect society, whether it's a tiny little communal one or a whole society or whole world, is going to give you hell. It is a law of life. Heaven is available after this life, not in this life. Doesn't mean we try— we don't try to make it better. Of course we do. Of course. But get rid of all visions of the perfect society. Get rid of all visions. By the way, when I have a vision of the perfect society, I will tell you though, I have actually, I have a very simple one. This is totally serious. If people did not steal, murder, or lie, that would be it. That's all I ask. That is all I ask. It sounds pretty easy. And on the lying, I'm even aware that there will be some, you know, fudging here and fudging there. I'm not even utopian on the lying part. I'm utopian on the stealing and the murder. But it would still be a flawed society. You would still have jealousy and you would still have rage and you would still have coveting and you would even— there'd still be a lot of other things. But my God, I'll tell you, the closest we could ever get to utopia In my opinion, is if people just didn't do those things, that's how good a place it would be. But as for everything, how could flawed people make a perfect society? I mean, just think about it, how stupid that is. That's like asking flawed cells to make a perfect organism. The organism can't be better than its flawed members. Alright, let's go to Fatihah in Philadelphia. Fatihah, Dennis Prager, thank you for calling. How you doing, Dennis? I'm a first-time caller. Pleasure to hear from you. Yeah, I wanted to make a comment. I'm a Muslim, and obviously I believe in the teachings of the Quran. Are you a traditional Muslim or a black Muslim? Am I? I'm a Muslim. I don't understand what you mean. Well, no, because I'm saying this— not that this is— there's no agenda. It's just the clarity thing. And you don't even have to answer it. It's just that the traditional Muslims say that there is a difference. But if you don't want to answer it, don't worry about it. Go ahead. Well, yeah, I wanted to say that, you know, in Islam, you know, the Quran teaches that there is no such thing as a perfect world. The whole purpose of creating Earth is to try to be perfect. And at the end, when your time has come, you will go to heaven or hell. That's the teaching. Yes. Well, I wasn't, I wasn't speaking about Islam. I was speaking about the Islamists, the people who do believe that if a Sharia-based society will be, it will be a, a utopia, right? Therefore, they're, they're prepared to impose it upon people, right? Right. Which is, which to me, according to what I believe, is not the teaching of Islam. Well, God bless you, my friend. Just, I want you to speak up as much as you can. That's my only request of you. Thank you for your call. There is, though, that is the appeal of the Islamist. You see, look, we have all these problems in the Arab and Muslim world, but if you just come to us, you come to an Osama-type figure who lives in a cave, even with his billion dollars or millions of dollars and strict adherence to the Sharia, and it will end issues. You just put women in burkas and you will end sexual tension. After all, what are burkas about, right? It's only about sexual tension. So that's it, then it's over. Then there's no problem. Men will all be at peace with their sexual natures because the women will be invisible except for their wives. That's what it's about. It's idiocy. It's evil. Renders women into non-human, but it sounds great. After all, look at the way— this is the answer that is given— look at the way women parade their flesh in the Western world, and you know, that's much worse. There is too much parading of flesh in the Western world, but it sure isn't worse. I'll take liberty and parading any day. 1-800-PRAGER-776, and let's go to Rudy in Houston. Rudy, Dennis Prager, thank you for calling.
Hi Dennis, you have one of the most interesting radio talk shows.
Good radio, thank you, thank you.
Dennis, you know, even though utopia is not attainable, secular interest has not stopped from trying to attain or reach the glorious conclusion of a globalist utopia.
That's right. I think that the further left you go, the more there is a utopian dream. I agree. I was saying that.
You know, I see it beyond left or right. I think it's just a dialectical ploy.
Well, wherever it is, yep, it is a danger. Back in a moment. You're listening to the Dennis Prager Show, Specifically, the Ultimate Issues Hour. Each week this hour is devoted to some great, great question of life, great issue of life. Anybody who promises you anything even like a perfect society is going to give you hell. You should fear them, stop them, and loathe them. They, even if they mean well, I couldn't care less. That's why they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, because it is paved often with good intentions. Whether it is secular or religious, anyone who promises or says, you follow me, or you follow even this way, and you will make a perfect society, is going to give you hell. You can make a good society. We have a good society. It's already been made. It's called the United States of America. It's not perfect, but it's good. Because I don't compare it to utopia. I compare it to to real life. And that is what the left is incapable of understanding today because it has a utopian streak in it. One of the reasons it has a utopian streak is because in secular life there is no afterlife. So whereas the religious will have a heaven after we die, the secular want heaven while we live. This is why Marx hated religion. He said, oh, you know why the religious never revolt? Because religion is an opiate. It's the opiate of the people. That's what he meant. It puts them to sleep because it says you'll have heaven in the next world. Now, by the way, to a certain extent that was true, but it was wildly overstated. But the religious are more, or at least in our traditions, are more capable in Western religious life of accepting suffering, of accepting less than utopia, in part because of a belief in the afterlife, in heaven after we die. Now, that's not good if you don't try to make this world better. You have to have a balance. You can't rely on the afterlife and say nothing matters here. And at the same time, you can't say everything matters here And we better make heaven here. No, we can't make heaven here. Alrighty, let's go to Carson, California, and Chris. Chris, Dennis Prager, thank you for calling.
Dennis, I love your show and I'm totally addicted to it.
It's a good addiction. Thank you.
Well, as a young man, my vision of utopia was always Bedford Falls, you know, that town from It's a Wonderful Life. Stewart lived.
Yeah, but yeah, I understand that. I totally understand that. I have that danger that I have to fight as well about utopianizing parts of America. Go ahead.
Well, what happened is that the more I clung to that utopian vision, the more— the stronger my allegiance was to that, the more viciously intolerant I was becoming.
Oh, that's what I was saying.
So began to boil.
Sure, because any people— the anybody who disagrees with you is messing up utopia.
Exactly, exactly. I think that's where all the venom comes from the left, is the stronger their allegiance to their vision of utopian, they have to be intolerant of everything else.
Yes, that's right. That's how Michael Moore could go to Cuba and speak about how beautiful it is, even though it's a hellhole, even though if you differ, if you have independent thought, you are sent away to a prison, that people risk their lives to be eaten by sharks rather than live there. But that doesn't matter. They have perfect healthcare.
Yeah, well, consequently, the joy that I found is that it's not in, in finding the utopian perfection. It's embracing and forgiving what is imperfect.
That's right. And trying to make it a little better. A little better is, is beautiful, is just beautiful. But you're, you're right. You, you have done well. You have done well. Thank God that you have evolved into that view. Appreciate that call. And we go to— let's go to Brea, California. John. Hello, John. Dennis Prager.
Well, hi there. Hi. You know, it kind of amazes me how throughout history, every time some societies have tried to curb the appetites of sexual behavior, they've backfired. So the Sharia people are doing that, of course. And like in the— even in Victoria Age, you know, men became fixated on ankles because that's about all they could ever see, you know, or arms. So to try to curb it is— throughout history should show them that it's a terrible idea. Well, it always has a backlash. Well, I mean, the backlash is usually worse than than anything that they're trying to stop.
No, no, you are right, but at the same time, not curbing it at all gives you a sexual bombardment that we are now experiencing.
Oh no, I'm not saying that.
It's also unhealthy.
I'm talking about the extremes, Dennis Prager.
That's right, yeah, I agree, I agree. I'm explaining though that you don't want the other extreme. I'm on your side. There are, look, the only good life is a balanced one, and it is very hard to be balanced. Sex is a classic example of the attempt to spectacularly repress it, or the other attempt to allow it unfettered expression. They are both extremes that hurt the world and hurt individuals in it, which is what I'm ultimately talking about. That's correct. Spring Hill, Florida, Brian. Hello, Brian. Dennis Prager.
Good morning, Dennis Prager. As a senior at university, I was asked to write a paper on utopian societies, and I involved a lot of research, and in that research I actually came across a company who offers, for a price, to build you your own utopian society in a small city somewhere in America.
And wait, based on what specifications, or whose specifications?
Well, they offer two different plans, both of them very liberal, I might add.
Uh-huh.
But both of them involve this vision of a green sort of, um, energy efficient—
That's right. Oh, what is the name of the website?
HeavenHellPurgatory.com.
What a riot. I gotta check that out. Well, that is— people have it. It's a very big deal. And that's why I said earlier, please keep this in mind. Many people who are secular will be utopian because there is no heaven available in their view of the world because they're secular after death. So they better have heaven here, but it's not available here, so they'll make hell trying to make the heaven here. Final segment coming up, 1-800-PRAGER-776.
This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.
Incidentally, everybody, Dennis Prager here. I've gotten some wonderful feedback for the idea of starting Prager groups in your various cities to meet one another who listen to the show. And so if you're interested in helping form one or join one, send me an email through Prager Radio or DennisPrager.com, either one. And it does help with— and I'm saying this with a slight criticism here, I admit— if you put the city you live in. Merely telling me that you're interested in doing that, and it was not the more common. Mostly people did say where they are and It would help to give any information you can about yourself. Just saying you're interested with no city even does not help us much. But I really would love to start this. I think it would be a magnificent thing for you and for the values that I care about, but especially for you to meet each other. And talk about these things. Well, I've talked to you today at the— on this Ultimate Issues Hour. Now let's get— oh, let's see if we can sneak in a couple of calls here, and then I'll sum up. It's really, really, uh, really critical. Cleveland and Irene. Hello, Irene. Dennis Prager.
Yes, it's a pleasure, Dennis. I think a lot of the people who push utopia push it on people who are dissatisfied, and they just want to take control. 'Cause it's interesting that when they get into power, they generally don't follow their rules.
Not generally, always. They are so right. That's such a— yep, it's such a good point. You look at how Stalin lived while creating a workers' utopia of equality. Exactly. Or Mao. Oh, Mao. You have to read some of the biographies of Mao that are now coming out. And people who, in my generation, who marched with Mao's Red Book or Mao buttons or Mao jackets to honor the greatest mass murderer in history by numbers alone. Ah, but it is appealing. We have seen the future and it works. That is what British socialists said when they went to the Soviet Union in the '20s and the '30s. We have seen the future and it works. Everybody, this was what the left was about, is utopianism. That's why you can't argue with many of them. I'm talking about the real hardcore left, not talking about your average liberal. And of course you can have it elsewhere, and the Islamist has this picture of the world governed by Sharia. And if I have to blow up people to get it, I'll blow up people because I will have a beautiful world Folks, life is messy. We can make it a little better, and that's the best all of us can do, any of us can do, is make it a little better. The human being can make the world a lot worse, but not a lot better. You can make it a little better, and you can make it a lot worse. That's our choice. This has been the Ultimate Issues Hour. On the Dennis Prager Show.
Tomorrow on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
How important are memories to happiness? Now, bad memories— let's say you were abused as a child— that continues, that continues to affect many people's happiness. One of the major reasons for therapy is to expunge bad memories. So obviously Bad memories contribute to our unhappiness. That, that's, I think, fairly obvious. But here's the big question: do good memories contribute to our happiness?
Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles. This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.
Here's something most people don't know. When Warren Buffett was just 13 years old, he didn't put his money into a savings account. While other kids were earning next to nothing at local banks, Buffett put $114 into a little-known investment. Today, that $114 would be worth over $15 million. And it wasn't a risky trade. It wasn't even insider knowledge. It was an account that's been around since 1888. And over the last 25 years, it's averaged 29% a year. That's what happens when your money is allowed to compound. Compare that to today's savings accounts paying less than half a percent while inflation quietly eats away at your buying power. Buffett understood early, banks are great businesses, just not for savers. If you'd like to see what some investors call the 29% account, go now to secretaccount29.com. 29.com. That's Secret Account, the numbers, 29.com. SecretAccount29.com.
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