Societies can be sunk by the weight of buried ugliness.

Although traditional incentives such as bonuses or recognition can prod people to better performance, no external motivators can get people to perform at their absolute best. . . .Wherever people gravitate within their work roles, indicates where their real pleasure lies—and that pleasure is itself motivating.

people's emotions are rarely put into words , far more often they are expressed through other cues. the key to intuiting another's feelings is in the ability to read nonverbal channels , tone of voice , gesture , facial expression and the like

The book is a dialogue between The Dalai Lama and a group of scientists about how we can better handle our destructive emotions and how to overcome them.

One way to boost our will power and focus is to manage our distractions instead of letting them manage us.

One of the leading theories of why electroconvulsive therapy is effective for most severe depressions is that it causes a loss of short-term memory - patients feel better because they can't remember why they were sad.

Brain studies of mental workouts in which you sustain a single, chosen focus show that the more you detach from what's distracting you and refocus on what you should be paying attention to, the stronger this brain circuitry becomes.