Only 40 years passed between the moment Einstein determined that any kind of mass could be converted into energy—that's what E=mc2 means—and the moment atom bombs obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki and nuclear power stations mushroomed all over the globe.

The idea of progress is built on the notion that if we admit our ignorance and invest resources in research, things can improve. Whoever believes in progress believes that geographical discoveries, technological inventions and organizational developments can increase the sum total of human production, trade and wealth... I can become wealthy without you becoming poor; I can be obese without you dying of hunger.

The Atlantic slave trade did not stem from racist hatred towards Africans... the craving to increase profits and production blinds people to anything that might stand in the way... Capitalism has killed millions out of cold indifference coupled with greed.

We are more powerful than ever before, but have very little idea what to do with all that power... Time and again, massive increases in human power did not necessarily improve the well-being of individual Sapiens, and usually caused immense misery to other animals.

Consumerism encourages people to treat themselves, spoil themselves, and even kill themselves slowly by overconsumption. Frugality is a disease to be cured.

The new ethic promises paradise on condition that the rich remain greedy and spend their time making more money, and that the masses give free rein to their cravings and passions—and buy more and more. This is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to do.

everything you will ever experience in life is within your own body and your own mind. Breaking out of the matrix or traveling to Fiji won't make any difference.

If you can understand what happens to you as one moment ends and another moment begins, you will also understand what will happen to you at the moment of death.

We humans have conquered the world thanks to our ability to create and believe fictional stories. We are therefore particularly bad at knowing the difference between fiction and reality.

For years I had lived under the impression that I was the master of my life, the CEO of my own personal brand. But a few hours of meditation were enough to show me that I had hardly any control over myself. I was not the CEO; I was barely the gatekeeper.

If we understand that our desires are not the magical manifestations of free choice but are rather the product of biochemical processes (influenced by cultural factors that are also beyond our control), we might be less preoccupied with them.

both the 'self' and freedom are mythological chimeras borrowed from the fairy tales of ancient times... in order to understand ourselves, a crucial step is to acknowledge that the 'self' is a fictional story that the intricate mechanisms of our mind constantly manufacture, update, and rewrite... Like the government spin doctors... my inner propaganda machine creates a personal myth with prized memories and cherished traumas that often bear little resemblance to the truth.

consciousness is the greatest mystery in the universe, and mundane feelings of heat and itching are every bit as mysterious as feelings of rapture or cosmic oneness

authenticity is a myth. People are afraid of being trapped inside a box, but they don't realize that they are already trapped inside one—their brain—which is locked within the bigger box of human society with its myriad fictions... your core identity is a complex illusion created by neural networks.

The Frankenstein myth confronts Homo sapiens with the fact that the last days are fast approaching... the pace of technological development will soon lead to the replacement of Homo sapiens by completely different beings

the real question facing us is not, 'What do we want to become?', but 'What do we want to want?' Those who are not spooked by this question probably haven't given it enough thought.

A ritual is a magical act that makes the abstract concrete and the fictional real. The essence of ritual is the magical spell 'Hocus-pocus [Hoc est corpus] X is Y!... powerful spells that transform a frog into a prince and a pumpkin into a carriage.

Most stories are held together by the weight of their roof rather than by the strength of their foundations. Consider the Christian story. It has the flimsiest of foundations. What evidence do we have [and yet] Entire wars have been waged over changing a single word of the story.

the most prophetic science-fiction book of the 20th century... reading Brave New Word is a disconcerting and challenging experience in large part because you are hard-pressed to put your finger on what exactly makes it dystopian... Huxley's genius consists in showing that you can control people far more securely through love and pleasure than through fear and violence.

Drinking lots of Coca-Cola will not make you young, will not make you healthy, and will not make you athletic – rather, it increases your chances of suffering from obesity and diabetes. Yet for decades Coca-Cola has invested billions of dollars in linking itself to youth, health and sports – and billions of humans subconsciously believe in this linkage.