The point is that most of what we currently hold sacred is not sacred for any reason other than that it was thought sacred yesterday. - Sam Harris

Honest people are a refuge: You know they mean what they say; you know they will not say one thing to your face and another behind your back; you know they will tell you when they think you have failed — and for this reason their praise cannot be mistaken for mere flattery.

The sense, therefore, that we are unified subjects — the unchanging thinkers of thoughts and experiencers of experience — is an illusion. The conventional self is a transitory appearance among transitory appearances, and it vanishes when looked for.

If you are perpetually angry, depressed, confused, and unloving, or your attention is elsewhere, it won’t matter how successful you become or who is in your life — you won’t enjoy any of it.