Top 50 Dan Harris Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “There’s no point in being unhappy about things you can’t change, and no point being unhappy about things you can.”

— Dan Harris

2. “Happiness, it turns out, is a skill-one that you can train, just like you train your body in the gym. This is the next big public health revolution. Get on board.”

— Dan Harris

3. “May you be happy. May you be safe and protected from harm. May you be healthy and strong. May you live with ease.”

— Dan Harris

4. “If you don’t waste your energy on variables you cannot influence, you can focus much more effectively on those you can. When you are wisely ambitious, you do everything you can to succeed, but you are not attached to the outcome – so that if you fail, you will be maximally resilient, able to get up, dust yourself off, and get back in the fray.”

— Dan Harris

5. “Axelrod responded, “All we can do is everything we can do.”

— Dan Harris

6. “The fact that you exist is a highly statistically improbable event, and if you are not perpetually surprised by the fact that you exist you don’t deserve to be here.”

— Dan Harris

7. “Make the present moment your friend rather than your enemy. Because many people live habitually as if the present moment were an obstacle that they need to overcome in order to get to the next moment. And imagine living your whole life like that, where always this moment is never quite right, not good enough because you need to get to the next one. That.”

— Dan Harris

8. “We live so much of our lives pushed forward by these “if only” thoughts, and yet the itch remains. The pursuit of happiness becomes the source of our unhappiness.”

— Dan Harris

9. “Prepare like no other, know that there was nothing left for you to do when it’s all said and done. This way a loss is just a stat. The better man will always win if he prepared like no other.”

— Dan Harris

10. “Imagine a world where people were 10% happier and less reactive. Marriage, parenting, road rage, politics – all would be improved upon. Public health revolutions can happen rapidly. Most Americans didn’t brush their teeth until after world war 2 after soldiers were demanded to maintain oral hygiene. Exercise didn’t get popular until science proved its benefits. Mindfulness, I had come to believe, could, in fact, change the world.”

— Dan Harris

11. “It’s okay to worry, plot, and plan, he’s saying – but only until it’s not useful anymore.”

— Dan Harris

12. “Add it all up, and some prominent Obama supporters are now saying that it paints a picture of an opposition driven, in part, by a refusal to accept a black President.”

— Dan Harris

13. “The brain is a pleasure seeking machine. Once you teach it, through meditation, that abiding calmly in the present moment feels better than our habitual state of clinging l, over time, the brain will want more and more mindfulness.”

— Dan Harris

14. “All of us struggle to strike a balance between the image we present to the world and the reality of our inner landscape.”

— Dan Harris

15. “Turns out, it’s pretty simple to win people over, especially in tense situations, if you’re able to take their perspective and validate their feelings.”

— Dan Harris

16. “In his books, Tolle repeatedly denigrated the habit of worrying, which he characterized as a useless process of projecting fearfully into an imaginary future. “There is no way that you can cope with such a situation, because it doesn’t exist.”

— Dan Harris

17. “Marturano recommended something radical: do only one thing at a time. When you’re on the phone, be on the phone. When you’re in a meeting, be there. Set aside an hour to check your email, and then shut off your computer monitor and focus on the task.”

— Dan Harris

18. “It was the longest, most exquisite high of my life, but the hangover came first.”

— Dan Harris

19. “Make the present moment your friend rather than your enemy. Because many people live habitually as if the present moment were an obstacle that they need to overcome in order to get to the next moment.”

— Dan Harris

20. “We “live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation,” he wrote. We wax nostalgic for prior events during which we were doubtless ruminating or projecting. We cast forward to future events during which we will certainly be fantasizing.”

— Dan Harris

21. “I do know one thing for sure: there’s much more for me to do. Whether or not 100% happy is achievable, I can definitely be more than 10% happier – and I’m excited to.”

— Dan Harris

22. “I suspect that if the practice could be denuded of all the spiritual preening and straight-out-of-a-fortune-cookie lingo such as “sacred spaces,” “divine mother,” and “holding your emotions with love and tenderness,” it would be attractive to many more millions of smart, skeptical, and ambitious people who would never otherwise go near it.”

— Dan Harris

23. “That phrase – “the wisdom of insecurity” – really struck me. It was the perfect rejoinder to my “price of security” motto. It made me see my work worries in an entirely different light. If there was no such thing as security, then why bother with the insecurity?”

— Dan Harris

24. “The pursuit of happiness becomes the source of our unhappiness.”

— Dan Harris

25. “Is this useful?” It’s a simple, elegant corrective to my “price of security” motto. It’s okay to worry, plot, and plan, he’s saying – but only until it’s not useful anymore.”

— Dan Harris

26. “All I had to do was tell myself: if it doesn’t work, I only need the grit to start again – just like when my mind wandered in meditation.”

— Dan Harris

27. “Once you get the hang of it, the practice can create just enough space in your head so that when you get angry or annoyed, you are less likely to take the bait and act on it. There’s even science to back this up – an explosion of new research, complete with colorful MRI scans, demonstrating that meditation can essentially rewire your brain.”

— Dan Harris

28. “In moments where I was temporarily able to suspend my monkey mind and simply experience whatever was going on, I got just the smallest taste of the happiness I’d achieved while on retreat.”

— Dan Harris

29. “5. Non-identification. Can you let the emotional feeling do its thing without taking it personally? Try to see your emotions like you see the weather: not as something to judge yourself for but, rather, as part of the natural atmospheric conditions of the moment. This is a deeper form of allowing. After you’ve let this happen for a while, go back to the breath or to your home or rest sensation for a bit. Before you open your eyes, take a few minutes to relax and do nothing.”

— Dan Harris

30. “What he really meant was something like, “Everything in the world is ultimately unsatisfying and unreliable because it won’t last.”

— Dan Harris

31. “What mindfulness does is create some space in your head so you can, as the Buddhists say, “respond” rather than simply “react.” In the Buddhist view, you can’t control what comes up in your head; it all arises out of a mysterious void. We spend a lot of time judging ourselves harshly for feelings that we had no role in summoning. The only thing you can control is how you handle it.”

— Dan Harris

32. “The ego is never satisfied. No matter how much stuff we buy, no matter how many arguments we win or delicious meals we consume, the ego never feels complete.”

— Dan Harris

33. “Acknowledging other people’s basic humanity is a remarkably effective way of shooing away the swarm of self-referential thoughts that buzz like gnats around our heads.”

— Dan Harris

34. “Mark had helped me see that the point of getting behind the waterfall wasn’t to magically solve all of your problems, only to handle them better, by creating space between stimulus and response. It was about mitigation, not alleviation.”

— Dan Harris

35. “The Buddha embraced an often overlooked truism: nothing lasts – including us. We and everyone we love will die. Fame fizzles, beauty fades, continents shift. Pharaohs are swallowed by emperors, who fall to sultans, kings, kaisers, and presidents – and it all plays out against the backdrop of an infinite universe in which our bodies are made up of atoms from the very first exploding stars. We may know this intellectually, but on an emotional level we seem to be hardwired for denial.”

— Dan Harris

36. “She nailed the method for applying mindfulness in acute situations, albeit with a somewhat dopey acronym: RAIN. R: recognize A: allow I: investigate N: non-identification “Recognize.”

— Dan Harris

37. “Everything in the world is ultimately unsatisfying and unreliable because it won’t last.”

— Dan Harris

38. “Perhaps the most powerful Tollean insight into the ego was that it is obsessed with the past and the future, at the expense of the present.”

— Dan Harris

39. “We can do more than just think; we also have the power simply to be aware of things – without judgment, without the ego. This is not to denigrate thinking, just to say that thinking without awareness can be a harsh master.”

— Dan Harris

40. “The scientists found that the meditators released significantly lower doses of a stress hormone called cortisol. In other words, practicing compassion appeared to be helping their bodies handle stress in a better way. This was consequential because frequent or persistent release of cortisol can lead to heart disease, diabetes, dementia, cancer, and depression.”

— Dan Harris

41. “Our entire lives, he argued, are governed by a voice in our heads. This voice is engaged in a ceaseless stream of thinking – most of it negative, repetitive, and self-referential. It squawks away at us from the minute we open our eyes in the morning until the minute we fall asleep at night, if it allows us to sleep at all. Talk, talk, talk: the voice is constantly judging and labeling everything in its field of vision. Its targets aren’t just external; it often viciously taunts us, too.”

— Dan Harris

42. “On meditation Real Happiness, Sharon Salzberg Insight Meditation, Joseph Goldstein On Buddhism and mindfulness in general Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart, Dr. Mark Epstein Buddhism Without Beliefs, Stephen Batchelor FAQS.”

— Dan Harris

43. “It’s like, you write a book, you want it to be well received, you want it to be at the top of the bestsellers list, but you have limited control over what happens. You can hire a publicist, you can do every interview, you can be prepared, but you have very little control over the marketplace. So you put it out there without attachment, so it has its own life. Everything is like that.”

— Dan Harris

44. “Fair enough, he concedes. “But when you find yourself running through your trip to the airport for the seventeenth time, perhaps ask yourself the following question: ‘Is this useful’?” His answer is so smart I involuntarily jolt back in my chair and smile. “Is this useful?” It’s a simple, elegant corrective to my “price of security” motto.”

— Dan Harris

45. “To my surprise, Epstein seemed to be arguing that Buddhism was better than seeing a shrink. Therapy, he said, often leads to “understanding without relief.” Even Freud himself had conceded that the best therapy could do was bring us from “hysteric misery” to “common unhappiness.”

— Dan Harris

46. “Many of us labor under the delusion that we’re permanently stuck with all of the difficult parts of our personalities – that we are “hot-tempered,” or “shy,” or “sad” – and that these are fixed, immutable traits. We now know that many of the attributes we value most are, in fact, skills, which can be trained the same way you build your body in the gym.”

— Dan Harris

47. “What’s with you and the whole meditation thing?” Trying to avoid another long, unsuccessful answer, I blurted out, “I do it because it makes me 10% happier.” The look on her face instantly changed. What had been a tiny glimmer of scorn was suddenly transformed into an expression of genuine interest. “Really?” she said. “That sounds pretty good, actually.”

— Dan Harris

48. “He explained that frequent cocaine use increases the levels of adrenaline in the brain, which dramatically ups the odds of having a panic attack.”

— Dan Harris

49. “Focusing on the breath as a way to temporarily stop the thinking was like using a broom to sweep a floor crawling with cockroaches. You could clear the space briefly, but then the bugs came marauding back in.”

— Dan Harris

50. “At the end, the meditator arrives at the true goal of Buddhist meditation: to see that the “self” that we take to be the ridgepole of our lives is actually an illusion.”

— Dan Harris