97+ Beyond Order Quotes + Summary (Book By Jordan Peterson)

By Maxime Lagacé

Maxime is the founder of WisdomQuotes. He has been collecting quotes since 2004. His goal? To help you develop a calm and peaceful mind. Learn more about him on his about page.

Best QuotesWhat Are The 12 Rules?OrderChaosDeep – LifeRelationshipsGoals – ResponsibilityBeautyMain Idea Of The BookSummary

Here are 97+ Quotes from the book Beyond Order by Jordan Peterson (+ a summary at the end).

Is Beyond Order worth your time?

The short answer is: yes.

If you’re struggling to find a path and meaning in your life, this is the book you need.

You’ll find inspiring and powerful ideas on how to live your life with more:

  • purpose
  • responsibility
  • and courage

But before we go any further, here are 3 facts about Beyond Order:

I hope you’ll enjoy the quotes, summary, and book, as much as I did.

jordan peterson beyond order

Buy the book here: AudioPaperbackHardcover

The Best Quotes From Beyond Order

beyond order quotes summary jordan peterson making something beautiful worthwhile wisdom

Making something beautiful is difficult, but it is amazingly worthwhile. Jordan Peterson

Find something productive and interesting to do and commit to it. Jordan Peterson

Have some humility. Clean up your bedroom. Take care of your family. Follow your conscience. Straighten up your life. Jordan Peterson

If you work as hard as you can on one thing, you will change. You will start to also become one thing, instead of the clamouring multitude you once were. Jordan Peterson

The mere fact that something makes you happy in the moment does not mean that it is in your best interest, everything considered. Jordan Peterson

To work means to sacrifice the hypothetical delights of the present for the potential improvement of what lies ahead. Jordan Peterson

beyond order quotes summary jordan peterson what need remains least look wisdom

What you need remains hidden where you least want to look. Jordan Peterson

To orient ourselves in the world, we need to know where we are and where we are going. Jordan Peterson

Learn from the past. Or repeat its horrors, in imagination, endlessly. Jordan Peterson

If you aim at nothing, you become plagued by everything. Jordan Peterson

Who are you? And, more importantly, who could you be, if you were everything you could conceivably be? Jordan Peterson

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What are the 12 new rules in Beyond Order?

  • Rule 1 – Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or creative achievement
  • Rule 2 – Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that
  • Rule 3 – Do not hide unwanted things in the fog
  • Rule 4 – Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated
  • Rule 5 – Do not do what you hate
  • Rule 6 – Abandon ideology

beyond order quotes summary jordan peterson work hard possibly can happens wisdom

  • Rule 7 – Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens
  • Rule 8 – Try to make one room in your home as beautiful as possible
  • Rule 9 – If old memories still upset you, write them down carefully and completely
  • Rule 10 – Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship
  • Rule 11 – Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant
  • Rule 12 – Be grateful in spite of your suffering
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Quotes About Order From Beyond Order

beyond order quotes summary jordan peterson continual preparation wisdom

The problem with that continual preparation is that, in excess, it exhausts us. Jordan Peterson

We are in order when the actions we deem appropriate produce the results we aim at. Jordan Peterson

All states of order, no matter how secure and comfortable, have their flaws. Jordan Peterson

Because what we understand is insufficient, we need to keep one foot within order while stretching the other tentatively into the beyond. Jordan Peterson

The fact that something has occured many times in the past is no guarantee that it will continue to occur in the same manner. Jordan Peterson

Organize what you can see is dangerously disorganized. Jordan Peterson

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Quotes About Chaos From Beyond Order

beyond order quotes summary jordan peterson past ordered chaos wisdom

If the past has not been ordered, the chaos it still constitutes haunts us. Jordan Peterson

No one unwilling to be a foolish beginner can learn. Jordan Peterson

An artist constantly risks falling fully into chaos, instead of transforming it. Jordan Peterson

Chaos is anomaly, novelty, unpredictability, transformation, disruption, and all too often, descent, as what we have come to take for granted reveals itself as unreliable. Jordan Peterson

Sometimes [chaos] manifests itself gently, revealing its mysteries in experience that makes us curious, compelled, and interested.

We must in our ignorance prepare for all eventualities. Jordan Peterson

beyond order quotes summary jordan peterson exists eternally domain predict wisdom

There exists, eternally, a domain beyond what we know and can predict. Jordan Peterson

It is much better to make friends with what you do not know than with what you do know, as there is an infinite supply of the former but a finite stock of the latter. Jordan Peterson

We are driven to explore and find the deepest of meanings in standing on the frontier, secure enough to keep our fear under control but learning, constantly learning, as we face what we have not yet made peace with or adapted to. Jordan Peterson

What is new is also what is exciting, compelling, and provocative, assuming that the rate at which it is introduced does not intolerably undermine and destabilize our state of being. Jordan Peterson

The Fool is a young, handsome man, eyes lifted upward, journeying his willingness to risk such a drop; to risk being once again at the bottom. Jordan Peterson

The healthy, dynamic, and above all else truthful personality will admit to error. Jordan Peterson

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Deep And Inspirational Quotes From Beyond Order

beyond order quotes summary jordan peterson knocked truly wanting door wisdom

If you truly wanted, perhaps you would receive, if you asked. If you truly sought, perhaps you would find what you seek. If you knocked, truly wanting to enter, perhaps the door would open. Jordan Peterson

You do not choose what interests you. It chooses you. Jordan Peterson

It is necessary and helpful to be, and in some ways to remain, a beginner. Jordan Peterson

Every rule was once a creative act, breaking other rules. Jordan Peterson

People have been working out how to live for a long time. What they have produced is strange but also rich beyond comparison, so why not use it as a guide? Your vision will be grander and your plans more comprehensive. Jordan Peterson

If you allow yourself to know what you want, then you will also know precisely when you are failing to get it. Jordan Peterson

We must recollect ourselves or suffer in direct proportion to our ignorance and avoidance. Jordan Peterson

Much that is great starts small, ignorant, and useless. […] But today’s beginner is tomorrow’s master. Jordan Peterson

If you fail to understand evil, then you have laid yourself bare to it. Jordan Peterson

Quotes About Life From Beyond Order

beyond order quotes summary jordan peterson life repeats worth getting right wisdom

Life is what repeats, and it is worth getting what repeats right. Jordan Peterson

For better or worse, you are on a journey. You are having an adventure — and your map better be accurate. Jordan Peterson

There will be times in your life when it will take everything you have to face what is in front of you, instead of hiding away from a truth so terrible that the only thing worse is the falsehood you long to replace it with. Jordan Peterson

It appears that the meaning that most effectively sustains life is to be found in the adoption of responsibility. Jordan Peterson

You should be careful, therefore, to live your life fully, and marriage and children and grandchildren, and all the trouble and heartbreak that accompanies all of that, is much of what life has to offer. Miss it at your great peril. Jordan Peterson

Life is so difficult that losing sight of the heroic part of existence could cost us everything. Jordan Peterson

You need to map your path. You need to know where you were, so that you do not repeat the mistakes of the past. You need to know where you are, or you will not be able to draw a line from your starting point to your destination. You need to know where you are going, or you will drown in uncertainty, unpredictability, and chaos, and starve for hope and inspiration. Jordan Peterson

Success at a given endeavour often means trying, falling short, recalibrating with the new knowledge generated painfully by the failure, and then trying again and falling short — often repeated, ad nauseam. Jordan Peterson

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Quotes About Relationships And Love From Beyond Order

beyond order quotes summary jordan peterson people exist among other individual minds wisdom

People exist among other people and not as purely individual minds. Jordan Peterson

We all need to think to keep things straight, but we mostly think by talking. Jordan Peterson

People depend on constant communication with others to keep their minds organized. Jordan Peterson

Your failure to specify your desires means your unfortunate lover will have to guess what would please and displease you, and is likely to be punished in some manner for getting it wrong. Jordan Peterson

We cannot live without food, water, clean air, and shelter. Less self-evidently, we require companionship, play, touch, and intimacy. These are biological as well as psychological necessities. Jordan Peterson

People remain mentally healthy not merely because of the integrity of their own minds, but because they are constantly being reminded how to think, act, and speak by those around them. Jordan Peterson

Gratitude: There are people whose expertise exceeds your own, and you should be wisely pleased about that. Jordan Peterson

Romance requires trust — and the deeper the trust, the deeper the possibility for romance. Jordan Peterson

beyond order quotes summary jordan peterson naive expect beauty love wisdom

Do not be naive, and do not expect the beauty of love to maintain itself without all-out effort on your part. Jordan Peterson

We need to talk about the past, so we can distinguish the trivial, overblown concerns that otherwise plague our thoughts from the experiences that are truly important. Jordan Peterson

We need to talk about the nature of the present and our plans for the future, so we know where we are, where we are going, and why we are going there. Jordan Peterson

I will trust you — I will extend my hand to you — despite the risk of betrayal, because it is possible, through trust, to bring out the best in you, and perhaps in me. Jordan Peterson

Freud and Jung, with their intense focus on the autonomous individual psyche, placed too little focus on the role of the community in the maintenance of personal mental health. Jordan Peterson

Allow yourself to become aware of what you want and need, and have the decency to let your partner in on the secret. After all, who else are you going to tell?

Quotes About Doing Hard things And Goals From Beyond Order

beyond order quotes summary jordan peterson reciprocal relationship worth difficulty wisdom

There is a reciprocal relationship between the worth of something and the difficulty of accomplishing it. Jordan Peterson

If you don’t have any goals you don’t have a life!

The properly functioning and integrated individual tempers the desires of the present with the necessities of the future. Jordan Peterson

If you want to become invaluable in a workplace — in any community — just do the useful things no one else is doing. Jordan Peterson

Aim at something. Discipline yourself. Or suffer the consequence. And what is that consequence? All the suffering of life, with none of the meaning. Is there a better description of hell?

If you make what you want clear and commit yourself to its pursuit, you may fail. But if you do not make what you want clear, then you will certainly fail. Jordan Peterson

Work, when you are working, instead of looking like you are working. Jordan Peterson

beyond order quotes summary jordan peterson aim something best target conceptualize wisdom

Aim at something. Pick the best target you can currently conceptualize. Stumble toward it. Notice your errors and misconceptions along the way, face them, and correct them. Jordan Peterson

You have to have goals. If you have goals you have responsibility. You have a responsibility to move towards your goals. You find your meaning in responsibility. Jordan Peterson

Imagine the following conversation: “Do you want difficulty?” “No, I want ease.” “In your experience, has doing something easy been worthwhile?” “Well, no, not very often.” “Then perhaps you really want something difficult.” Jordan Peterson

There is a high goal, a mountain peak, a star that shines in the darkness, beckoning above the horizon. Its mere existence gives you hope — and that is the meaning without which you cannot live. Jordan Peterson

Aim at something profound and noble and lofty. If you can find a better path along the way, once you have started moving forward, then switch course. Jordan Peterson

If you aim at nothing, you have nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nothing of high value in your life, as value requires the ranking of options and sacrifice of the lower to the higher. Jordan Peterson

Incremental improvement, repeated, is unstoppable! Aim high, but reward yourself for small incremental improvements – especially the ones that repeat every day. Jordan Peterson

You cannot hit a target that you refuse to see. You cannot hit a target if you do not take aim. Jordan Peterson

Quotes About Responsibility And Meaning From Beyond Order

beyond order quotes summary jordan peterson get your story straight matter wisdom

Get your story straight. Past, present, future — they all matter. Jordan Peterson

Is their use of free time engaging, meaningful, and productive?

The sense of meaning is an indicator that you are on that path. It is an indication that all the complexity that composes you is lined up within you, and aimed at something worth pursuing — something that balances the world, something that produces harmony. Jordan Peterson

A bricklayer may question the utility of laying his bricks, monotonously, one after another. But perhaps he is not merely laying bricks. Maybe he is building a wall. And the wall is part of a building. And the building is a cathedral. And the purpose of the cathedral is the glorification of the Highest Good. Jordan Peterson

Every brick laid is an act that partakes of the divine. And if what you are doing in your day-to-day activity is not enough, then you are not aiming at the construction of a proper cathedral. And that is because you are not aiming high enough. Jordan Peterson

If you have something meaningful to pursue, then you are engrossed in life. You are on a meaningful path. Jordan Peterson

The most profound and reliable instinct for meaning — if not perverted by self-deceit and sin (there is no other way to state it) — manifests itself when you are on the path of maximum virtue. Jordan Peterson

What if you began to build yourself into a person who could? You could start by trying to solve a small problem — something that is bothering you, that you think you could fix. Jordan Peterson

We are each more responsible for the state of the world than we believe, or would feel comfortable believing. Jordan Peterson

beyond order quotes summary jordan peterson becomes meaningful proportion depths responsibility wisdom

Your life becomes meaningful in precise proportion to the depths of the responsibility you are willing to shoulder. Jordan Peterson

You are now genuinely involved in making things better. You are minimizing the unnecessary suffering. You are encouraging those around you, by example and word. Jordan Peterson

You are possessed of an instinct — a spirit — that orients you toward the highest good. It calls your soul away from hell and toward heaven. Jordan Peterson

Voluntarily confront what stands in your way. The way — that is the path of life, the meaningful path of life, the straight and narrow path that constitutes the very border between order and chaos. Jordan Peterson

No purpose? Then, no positive emotion, as most of what drives us forward with hope intact is the experience of approaching something we deeply need and want. Jordan Peterson

You could start by confronting a dragon of just the size that you are likely to defeat. Jordan Peterson

Truth, virtue, and courage are not necessarily enough, but they are our best bet. Jordan Peterson

Quotes About Beauty And Art From Beyond Order

beyond order quotes summary jordan peterson cannot live connection divine beauty wisdom

We live by beauty. We live by literature. We live by art. We cannot live without some connection to the divine — and beauty is divine — because in its absence life is too short, too dismal, and too tragic. Jordan Peterson

This is the soul that will let its old beliefs burn away, often painfully, so that it can live again, and move forward, renewed. Jordan Peterson

[The truthful personality] will voluntarily shed — let die — outdated perceptions, thoughts, and habits, as impediments to its further success and growth. Jordan Peterson

Beauty leads you back to what you have lost. Beauty reminds you of what remains forever immune to cynicism. Beauty beckons in a manner that straightens your aim. Beauty reminds you that there is lesser and greater value. Jordan Peterson

If you learn to make something in your life truly beautiful — even one thing — then you have established a relationship with beauty. From there you can begin to expand that relationship out into other elements of your life and the world. That is an invitation to the divine. That is the reconnection with the immortality of childhood, and the true beauty and majesty of the Being you can no longer see. You must be daring to try that. Jordan Peterson

Many things make life worth living: love, play, courage, gratitude, work, friendship, truth, grace, hope, virtue, and responsibility. But beauty is among the greatest of these. Jordan Peterson

A certain amount of creativity and rebellion must be tolerated – or welcomed, depending on your point of view – to maintain the process of regeneration. Jordan Peterson

Art is exploration. Artists train people to see. Jordan Peterson

One Last Quote To Conclude

beyond order quotes summary jordan peterson meaning sustains life noble burden wisdom

The meaning that sustains life in all its tragedy and disappointment is to be found in shouldering a noble burden. Jordan Peterson

What is the main idea of Beyond Order?

Beyond Order explores as its overarching theme how the dangers of too much security and control might be profitably avoided. Jordan Peterson

Summary of Beyond Order

  • Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life is a self-help book by clinical psychologist and author Jordan Peterson
  • What you’ll learn in Beyond Order?
    • How to find meaning in your life
    • Why doing hard things is necessary
    • Why you should avoid too much comfort
    • Why you need order AND chaos in your life
  • Beyond Order is mainly for young men, but is still applicable to women too
  • Jordan Peterson is a profound author, so the reader must be prepared to think deeply
  • What is the ultimate lesson from Beyond Order? Life is full of suffering and beauty, and we should be grateful for both.

jordan peterson beyond order

Buy the book here: AudioPaperbackHardcover

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I hope you enjoyed these quotes from the book Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life, by Jordan Peterson.

If you did, please share them with a friend who could benefit from more order (and beyond!) in his/her life.

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Author Bio

maxime lagace

Maxime Lagacé started collecting quotes in 2004 after he lost his girlfriend in a car accident.

In search of meaning, he dived in the self-improvement world, psychology and trail running.

Books, blogs, quotes and nature became his guide.

He started journaling, reflecting, writing his thoughts, feelings and quotes.

His goal was to understand his pain, his depression, his fears, his lack of motivation and inspiration.

He finished his software engineering degree in 2007 at the École de Technologie Supérieure de Montréal.

A few years later, he started his first website to share his love of quotes.

Maxime is a father of two, husband, and INFJ.

Other notable interests of Maxime are health (mental and physical), meditation, bananas, SEO, human potential, and education.

You can find him on X, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube.

Last update

December 6, 2022

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