Awe is the emotion of self-transcendence.

Individuals who could not form cooperative alliances, on average, died sooner and left fewer children. And so we are the descendants of the successful cooperators.

I think the greatest truths, the ones that you find in every culture that has any sort of history of reflection of writing, the greatest truth is that there's nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so. That's the way Shakespeare put it. But you get basically the same idea from Buddha, from the Bhagavad Gita in India, and from the Stoics in ancient Greece and Rome.

People are wrong when they say that everything should be more diverse, even, say, rock bands. It's an error, an overgeneralization.

Happiness is not the shallow state of feeling pleased and chipper all the time. Happiness is the state of a human being that has achieved cross-level coherence within herself, and between herself and the people, challenges, and institutions around her. Happiness comes from between.

Religious experiences are real and common, whether or not God exists, and these experiences often make people whole and at peace.

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.