Studies showed that the best way to engineer an epiphany was to work hard, focus, research, and think about a problem—and then let go. Do something else.

Our entire lives are governed by a voice in our heads. This voice is engaged in a ceaseless stream of thinking—most of it negative, repetitive, and self-referential.

The ego is never satisfied. No matter how much stuff we buy, no matter how many arguments we win or delicious meals we consume, the ego never feels complete.

The ego thrives on drama. It keeps our old resentments and grievances alive through compulsive thought.

“When you have one foot in the future and the other in the past, you piss on the present.”

As best I could understand it, the Buddha’s main thesis was that in a world where everything is constantly changing, we suffer because we cling to things that won’t last.

We suffer because we get attached to people and possessions that ultimately evaporate.

The route to true happiness was to achieve a visceral understanding of impermanence, which would take you off the emotional roller coaster and allow you to see your dramas and desires through a wider lens.

This is where the Buddhists diverged quite dramatically from self-help: They had an actual, practical program. It wasn’t expensive gimcrackery. No spendy seminars, no credit cards required. It was totally free.

In a nutshell, mindfulness is the ability to recognize what is happening in your mind right now—anger, jealousy, sadness, the pain of a stubbed toe, whatever—without getting carried away by it.

We can do more than just think; we also have the power simply to be aware of things—without judgment, without the ego. This is not to denigrate thinking, just to say that thinking without awareness can be a harsh master.

Picture the mind like a waterfall, they said: the water is the torrent of thoughts and emotions; mindfulness is the space behind the waterfall.

RAIN. R: recognize A: allow I: investigate N: non-identification

Bingo: respond not react.

Sam once said in his speech to the angry, befuddled atheists, learn how to be happy “before anything happens.” This happiness is self-generated, not contingent on exogenous forces; it’s the opposite of “suffering.”

The real superpower of meditation is not just to manage your ego more mindfully but to see that the ego itself has no actual substance. Close your eyes and look for it, and you won’t find any “self” you can put your finger on.

... ask yourself the following question: ‘Is this useful’?

Our life is the manifestation of our minds.

The pursuit of happiness becomes the source of our unhappiness.

The brain, it turns out, is constantly changing in response to experience. It’s possible to sculpt your brain through meditation just as you build and tone your body through exercise—to grow your gray matter the way doing curls grows your bicep.

The brain, the organ of experience, through which our entire lives are led, can be trained. Happiness is a skill.

Mindfulness, I had come to believe, could, in fact, change the world.

“Practice of compassion is ultimately benefit to you. So I usually describe: we are selfish, but be wise selfish rather than foolish selfish.”

This clunky phrase “nonattachment to results” was my long-sought Holy Grail, the middle path, the marriage of “the price of security” and “the wisdom of insecurity.”

1. Don’t Be a Jerk 2. When Necessary, Hide the Zen 3. Meditate 4. The Price of Security Is Insecurity—Until It’s Not Useful 5. Equanimity Is Not the Enemy of Creativity 6. Don’t Force It 7. Humility Prevents Humiliation 8. Go Easy with the Internal Cattle Prod 9. Nonattachment to Results 10. What Matters Most?

Nonattachment to results + self compassion = a supple relentlessness that is hard to match. Push hard, play to win, but don’t assume the fetal position if things don’t go your way.

“Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It’s about feeling the way you feel.”

I think guys who are rebels and make their own rules are appealing.

They are more beautiful than anything in the world, kinetic sculptures, perfect form in motion.

If somebody dumps something noxious in my back yard, the dumper is the last one I would call on to repair the damage.

I move on stage differently. The more you act, anyway, the more you live, your perception of life becomes more and more accurate.

Experts always tend to obscure the obvious.

When people have options for what they want to see, it forces the quality of programming and content to be higher.

Promises may fit the friends but non performance will turn them into enemies.

There's nothing like living a little close to the edge that gets you motivated to ensure that you get the credentials you need to succeed.

It is motive alone that gives real value to the actions of men, and disinterestedness puts the cap to it

I'm not only a SINGER, I'm an ENTERTAINER... I make people dance away their sorrow and I put smiles on people face

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

To achieve your dream, see the world as you want it to be, not as it may appear to be.

May your love for each other always shine brightly Well wishes on your engagement

'Maze Runner' is about a group of teens that live inside this giant maze. And outside the maze are these creatures that come out at night. The centerpiece of the maze where we stay is called the Glades, and we call ourselves the Gladers.

I work closely with Hispanic leadership.

I've been a huge cricket fan since my teens, and I often used to go down to St. Helen's in Swansea in the summer. To me, it was like a 'rites of passage' experience to have the freedom of St. Helen's cricket ground.

Aspiring to a souffle, he achieves a pancake at which the reader saws without much appetite.

Obama remains frozen in his father's time machine. His anti-colonialism is the anti-colonialism of Africa in the 1950s: state confiscation of land, confiscatory taxation, and so on. My anti-colonialism is the anti-colonialism of India in the 21st century.

Look at what is happening in China and in Russia. They have units that are specifically targeted cyber warfare. They are carrying it out. Our critical infrastructure is attacked thousands of times a day.

It's very rare that a song falls from your mind complete.

When kids were busy playing at the age of 11, I was singing for the heroine of 'Shastra.'

Beauty does not always feel beautiful.