A laugh, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart, for without kindness, there can be no true joy.

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.

I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

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

In South Korea, they believe that when you turn 60, you’ve become a baby again and the rest of your life should be totally about joy and happiness, and people should leave you alone, and I just think that that’s the height of intelligence.

I always wanted a family.

No person who is well bred, kind and modest is ever offensively plain; all real deformity means want for manners or of heart.

I am criticised for not celebrating my goals enough. I am very happy from within, very calm. I just don’t celebrate. I celebrate inside.

Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.

Singing aloud leaves you with a sense of levity and contentedness.

My life turned out to be beyond my greatest dreams.

It is wrong to assume that men of immense wealth are always happy.

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.

I collect records. And cats. I don’t have any cats right now. But if I’m taking a walk and I see a cat, I’m happy.

There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means – either may do – the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.

What do you regard as most humane? To spare someone shame.

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?

Remind yourself that the greatest technique for bringing peace into your life is to always choose being kind when you have a choice between being right or being kind.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

Love is when the other person’s happiness is more important than your own.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

I just want people to be the best thems and live the happiest lives possible.

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.

Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.

Failure is not an option. Everyone has to succeed.

The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.

It’s better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone – so far.

The kindness that’s been shown to me, by doctors as well as my family and my friends, it’s really saved my life.

Anybody with a sense of humor is going to put on my album and laugh from beginning to end.

I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.

He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.

I only want my work to make people happy.

For what is love itself, for the one we love best? An enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.

Many people tell me that they don ‚t know what to feel when they finish one of my books because the story was dark, or complicated, or strange. But while they were reading it, they were inside my world and they were happy. That’s good.

I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite, which I would like.

He who laughs best today, will also laughs last.

You have to like the present; if not your life becomes secondhand, if you think it was better before. Or that it will be better in the future.

Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him.

True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt; its essence is love. It issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper.

I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life.

He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.

Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse.

I laugh and joke, but I don’t get distracted very easily.

Real living is living for others.

Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.

I know I will never be happy, but I know I can be gay!

I didn’t get depressed, I don’t get depressed.

I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: Love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity to name a few.

Find joy and solace in the simple, and cultivate your utopia by feeling the Tao in every cubic inch of space.

Even the most seemingly unpleasant situations – if you become aligned with it, something good will emerge from that.

You can be rich in spirit, kindness, love and all those things that you can’t put a dollar sign on.

In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.