Happiness is within the reach of everyone, rich or poor. Yet comparatively few people are happy. I believe the reason for this is that the majority don’t recognize happiness even when it is within their grasp.

Yes, we’ve still got more work to do. More work to do for every American still in need of a good job or a raise, paid leave or a decent retirement; for every child who needs a sturdier ladder out of poverty or a world-class education; for everyone who has not yet felt the progress of these past seven and a half years.

My doorman is more important to me than any head of any company. He keeps us safe.

A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

I think I hate cynicism more than anything else. It’s the curse of our age, and I want to avoid it at all costs.

Religion was instituted to make us happy in this life and in the other. What must we do to be happy in the life to come? Be just.

You’re not going to say anything about me that I’m not going to say about myself. There’s so many things that I think about myself; if someone really wanted to get at me, they could say this and this and this. So I’m going to say it before they can. It’s the best policy for me.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but then you’d never complete your life, would you? You’d never wholly know you.

If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.

Exercise is really important to me – it’s therapeutic. So if I’m ever feeling tense or stressed or like I’m about to have a meltdown, I’ll put on my iPod and head to the gym or out on a bike ride along Lake Michigan with the girls.

Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman, that she was born so long ago.

I like to make people feel happy and superior in their reaction towards my appearance.

Even if you’re happy with the life you’ve chosen, you’re still curious about the other options.

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

The funny thing is, all my friends are short. I wasn’t aware of tall people till I got to high school. I didn’t know they existed. I was sheltered.

Nobody can hurt me without my permission.

Despair is a narcotic. It lulls the mind into indifference.

Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.

Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.

No one is so miserable as the poor person who maintains the appearance of wealth.

In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice.

A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.

While victimhood in America is exalted, I don’t think our veterans should join those ranks.

I am who I am today because of my mother.

My justification is that most people my age spend a lot of time thinking about what they’re going to do for the next five or ten years. The time they spend thinking about their life, I just spend drinking.

Some people say that I should study to become a climate scientist so that I can ‚solve the climate crisis.‘ But the climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

I’ve always felt like there was a lot of hype around me even when there wasn’t. I felt like everyone was talking about me even when no one was talking about me.

How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

I mean… in life… what relationship is easy?

Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.

I don’t think I’m tangible to myself.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

I really thought I was on the way out. My husband Blake saved my life. Often I don’t know what I do, then the next day the memory returns. And then I am engulfed in shame.

I don’t look at myself as a commodity, but I’m sure a lot of people have.

People who pity themselves think, ‚Why would I try to do anything? I’ll just fail.‘

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

The Canteen Boy, the reason you feel bad for him and you can laugh is because he, and I guess a lot of my characters, they don’t notice they’re getting made fun of. So they’ll say something back that’s not that great a quip, but in their mind they won the argument.

As a leader, the first person I need to lead is me. The first person that I should try to change is me.

It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

I’m my own worst critic, and if I don’t pull off what I think I wanted to do in my head, then I won’t be a happy girl.

Love is only one of many passions.

It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

Somewhere, everywhere, now hidden, now apparent in what ever is written down, is the form of a human being. If we seek to know him, are we idly occupied?

The truth doesn’t hurt unless it ought to.

Nothing is so aggravating than calmness.

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‚I used everything you gave me‘.

I’m not good at talking about myself.

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.

Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.

There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or snicker; if sad, it must not scream or curse.

For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.

Nothing is worth more than this day.

Reactive people… are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior.

I just want to live happily ever after, every now and then.