Although the insights we can have in meditation tell us nothing about the origins of the universe, they do confirm some well-established truths about… - Sam Harris

Our conventional sense of self is an illusion; positive emotions, such as compassion and patience, are teachable skills; and the way we think directly influences our experience of the world.

The concessions we have made to religious faith - to the idea that belief can be sanctified by something other than evidence - have rendered us unable to name, much less address, one of the most pervasive causes of conflict in our world.

There’s something it’s like for me to see the green leaves outside my window right now, so that’s a conscious state to me. But there may be some unconscious language-processing going on in my head that doesn’t feel like anything to me, or some motor processes in the cerebellum. Those might be states of me, but they’re not conscious states of me, because there’s nothing it’s like for me to undergo those states.

He prolongs their life and prosperity so that they may continue heaping sin upon sin and all the more richly deserve the torments that await them beyond the grave.