I strongly believe that the Founding Fathers of our country got it right: power corrupts, and any time you have too much power concentrated in one place, it tends to get abused, so checks and balances are always needed.

We all know we're going to die one day, but who wants to think about it? What's sustainable is joy, pleasure and freedom.

Think about it: Heart disease and diabetes, which account for more deaths in the U.S. and worldwide than everything else combined, are completely preventable by making comprehensive lifestyle changes. Without drugs or surgery.

Make choices to empower yourself.

A valid scientific theory is predictive, verifiable, and replicable. To me, that's beautiful.

No one has a monopoly on truth, and science continues to advance. Yesterday's heresies may be tomorrow's conventional wisdom.

One of the reasons I'm excited by what visionary Elon Musk has done with the Tesla is to show that you can reduce global warming and drive a powerful, fun car. A cool car helps make a cooler planet.

Even more than feeling healthy, most people want to feel free and in control.

An Asian way of eating and living may help prevent and even reverse the progression of coronary heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, prostate cancer and breast cancer. Incorporate more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, soy products and fish in your diet. Eat at home more with your family and friends.

If we're not careful, we become that which we most fear.

The need for connection and community is primal, as fundamental as the need for air, water, and food.

What matters most is your overall way of eating and living.

When you grow up in an extended family, or in a stable neighborhood with two or three generations of families who live there, you feel seen. Not just the good things you've done, the stuff you put on your resume. You know they've seen you in your dark times, when you've messed up - but they're still there.

In business, when you can meet an unmet need that is this primal, even meeting it in a superficial way can create a multi-billion-dollar business - e.g., the chat rooms in AOL when it first came out, or the lounges in Starbucks, or the billion people who are on Facebook - even though these are hardly the most intimate of life experiences.

Because the biological mechanisms that affect our health and well-being are so dynamic, when people change their diet and lifestyle, they usually feel so much better, so quickly; it reframes the reason for changing from fear of dying to joy of living. Also, the support that patients give each other is a powerful motivator.

Whether it's by helping us search for health-related information, connecting us with doctors through online portals, or enabling us to store and retrieve our medical records online, the Internet is starting to show the promise it has to transform the way people interact with and improve their own health and wellness.

Curious patients are more receptive to new ideas, and those who engage their health practitioners in a dialogue are much more likely to adhere to these recommendations.

If you're with a close friend, your anger may raise his blood pressure as well as your own, whereas loving feelings may lower blood pressure in both of you.

An educated patient is empowered; thus, more likely to become healthy.

To the degree you eat less of the bad carbs and fats and enough of the good carbs and fats, you're likely to look better, feel better, lose weight and gain health.

Telomeres are the ends of our chromosomes that control how long we live. As telomeres become shorter, then cells age and die more quickly. In simple terms, as your telomeres get shorter, your life gets shorter.

Awareness is the first step in healing.

Bureaucracies tend to perpetuate themselves, whether they are multinational corporations or large government institutions such as Medicare, often at the expense of those that they are supposed to serve.

Physical exercise is a great way to discharge stressful feelings that accumulate during the day.

When we torture people, even if we win the battle, we've already lost the war for hearts and minds. Especially our own.

What's personally sustainable is globally sustainable.

You can meditate on almost anything: a prayer, song, image or word. Close your eyes; sit in a comfortable position. Take a breath, and say the word out loud, emphasizing the humming sound at the end. When you come to the end of the breath, take another one and say the word again. And so on.

I've found that if I tell somebody 'Eat this and don't do that,' it's not only not helpful, it's counterproductive because even more than being healthy, we want to feel free and in control, and as soon as somebody tells us to do something, there's a tendency to do just the opposite.

While the digital age has done so much to improve our world, it has dramatically changed our social structure, often further isolating us from each other.

When most people think about my work, they think about diet. To me, diet has always been the least interesting part of it.

In an era in which war and terrorism - at home and abroad - are often based on racial, religious and ethnic differences, rediscovering the wisdom of love and compassion may help us increase our survival at a time when an increasingly divided country and world so badly need it.

'I resolve to eat less food' sounds good in theory, but it's often hard to sustain. And if you believe that it's all willpower, then you're likely to be upset with yourself if you don't succeed.

What we do eat is at least as important as what we don't eat.

A little humility goes a long way.

Whether you're six or sixty, if you go on a diet and lifestyle program and feel constrained, you're likely to go off it sooner or later. Offering a spectrum of choices is much more effective; then, you feel free and empowered.

It costs less to eat and live more healthfully. Walking, loving, meditating, and quitting smoking are free and require no special equipment.

A little dark chocolate in small amounts often helps lift me out of those blue moments. When I walk into my favorite store on Union Street in San Francisco that sells high-quality chocolates from around the world, I feel like, well, a kid in a candy store.

Educators and school personnel work on the front lines of childhood obesity, but every day they face the challenges of budget cuts, mandated tests, rushed lunch periods, and a decrease in time for physical activity.

No one has all the answers, so whatever a woman who has the BRCA mutation chooses to do requires courage and an element of faith. And a lot of love and support.

Small changes in diet don't have much effect on preventing coronary heart disease and cancer. But bigger changes in diet and lifestyle may prevent heart attacks in almost everyone.

When we forgive someone, it doesn't excuse their actions; it frees us from our own chronic stress and suffering, so it's in our own self-interest.

When the U.S. claims the right to invade any country unilaterally and then defines a country like Iran or North Korea as 'evil,' then it is a rational response for these countries to develop nuclear weapons as the only military deterrent to invasion. We create what we most fear.

Earlier in my life, I had a tendency toward depression.

Although scientists can often be as resistant to new ideas as anyone, the process of science ensures that, over time, good ideas and theories prevail.

I grew up in Texas, eating meat five times a day, and I liked meat. But I began being a vegetarian when I was 19 because I found that I felt better.

Intimacy is healing.

Meditation is the practice of giving something your full attention and awareness. When I eat a truffle, for example, I focus fully on it and involve as many of my senses as possible.

I am as non-accepting of medical quackery and unscientific approaches as anybody else. I've grown up as a card-carrying scientist, and I know the power of science to answer questions, and for many questions I don't know of anything better than scientific approaches to answer them.

Your body has a remarkable capacity to begin healing itself, and much more quickly than people had once realized, if you simply stop doing what's causing the problem.

Although many people believe that the primary emphasis of my work is about diet, it's not. What we eat is important, of course, but what comes out of our mouth may be more important than what goes into it.