Why is it that, despite having achieved previously undreamed-of miracles of progress, we seem more helpless in facing life than our less privileged ancestors were? The answer seems clear: while humankind collectively has increased its material powers a thousandfold, it has not advanced very far in terms of improving the content of experience.

People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.

The ability to take misfortune and make something good come of it is a rare gift. Those who possess it are ..said to have resilience or courage.

What does this contradictory pattern mean?one conclusion seems inevitable: when it comes to work, people do not heed the evidence of their senses. They disregard the quality of immediate experience, and base their motivation instead on the strongly rooted cultural stereotype of what work is supposed to be like. They think of it as an imposition, a constraint, an infringement of their freedom, and therefore something to be avoided as much as possible.

When a religion or ideology becomes dominant, the lack of controls will result in widening spirals of license leading to degradation and corruption.

There are managers so preoccupied with their e-mail messages that they never look up from their screens to see what's happening in the nondigital world

If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them.