I am convinced that the attitude we cultivate in advance may well determine how suffering will affect us when it does strike.

A healthy body attends to the pain of the weakest part.

In a consumer society, expectations dare not plateau, because a growing economy depends on rising expectations... The more we let our level of contentment be determined by outside factors-a new car, fashionable clothes, a prestigious career, social status-the more we relinquish control over our own happiness.