Just the attempt to learn a [new] language is like running different software through the brain.

The desire to transcend one's own ego boundaries, to share completely, even for a moment, the consciousness of another person must be a universal longing. It motivates many of our activities from taking drugs to making love, and lies behind the search for new ways of getting close to one another that is so intense in our society today.

The essence of health is inner balance.

I'm still not comfortable recommending that people eat saturated fat with abandon, but it's clear to me that sugar, flour and oxidized seed oils create inflammatory effects in the body that almost certainly bear most of the responsibility for elevating heart disease risk.

The more people have, the less content they seem to be. In America, the cultural expectation that we're to be happy all the time and our children are to be happy all the time is toxic, and I think that really gets in the way of emotional well-being.

In Europe, when tobacco was first introduced, it was immediately banned. In Turkey, if you got caught with tobacco, you had your nose slit. China and Russia imposed the death penalty for possession of tobacco.

Genuine happiness comes from within, and often it comes in spontaneous feelings of joy.