The universe has been around for a long time, and the universe is a very, very large place. If you’ll study even the smallest bit of science, for all practical purposes we are nothing. We are ameba. We are bacteria to the universe.

Judgment allows us to move through the world, but it’s also what separates us from one another. If I’m judging my friends and family, I’m separating myself from them. I’m creating a gap between us by putting them down and propping myself up.

That feeling of disconnection, loneliness, is eventually what leads to suffering.

Over time, as you judge, judge, judge, you invariably judge people. You judge yourself. You separate yourself from everything, and then you end up lonely.

We’re used to constantly judging things. The act of judging something separates you from that thing.

The fundamental insecurity – most people need faith in something – religion, government, academia. Few are comfortable with decentralized systems.

Involve groups in the creative process and you inevitably end up with a pile of pleasing, socially-acceptable lies. Contrast blockbuster movies with the great books.

The most powerful people in the world today are the people who are writing the algorithms for Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram because they’re controlling the spread of information. They’re programming the culture.

If you eat, invest, and think according to what the ‘news’ advocates, you’ll end up nutritionally, financially and morally bankrupt.

Reality is neutral. Reality has no judgments. To a tree, there’s no concept of right or wrong or good or bad. You’re born, you have a whole set of sensory experiences… and then you die. How you choose to interpret that is up to you. And you do have that choice.

Modern society will shame you for earning money, shame you for being happy, shame you for being raised well, shame you for having children, and ultimately, shame you for existing. It isn’t just religion that controls you by declaring you a sinner.

It’s kind of a disease – social media is making celebrities of all of us and celebrities are the most miserable people in the world.

Humans are always signaling. Rather than really looking at yourself, you’re looking at how other people look at you.

Suffering is a moment of clarity, when you can no longer deny the truth of a situation and are forced into uncomfortable change. Inside suffering is the seed of change.

You have social statisticians, scientists, and researchers in lab coats, literally the best minds of our generation figuring out how to addict you to the news. And if you fall for it, if you get addicted. your brain will get destroyed. 

When you look at the greatest artists and creators, they have this ability to start over that nobody else does.

If raising children was less rewarding than not doing it, the human race would have gone extinct.

Is it so important to me that I be unhappy unless this goes my way?

We are biological machines programmed to survive and replicate. Happy is anti-evolution.

On what he wants to be remembered for: Don’t care. I’ll be dead.

Self-image is the prison. Other people are the guards.

Guilt is society’s voice speaking in your head.

More drugs are taken to quiet the mind than to heal the body.

People spend too much time doing and not enough time thinking about what they should be doing