“Mere intellectual understanding is not  enough. It is not by leaving the doctor’s prescription by the bedside or learning it by heart that we are cured. We must integrate what we have learned so that our understanding becomes intimately bound up into our mind’s flow. Then it ceases to be theory and becomes self-transformation. Indeed, as we’ve seen, that is the meaning of the word meditation: familiarization with a new way of being. We can familiarize ourselves with all sorts of positive qualities in this way — kindness, patience, tolerance — and continue to develop them through meditation.”

—Ricard, Matthieu. “Happiness: A Guide for Developing Life’s Most Important Skill.” New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2003.