A man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.

I was fortunate and I was lucky that I had a couple of people in my life who cared about me. I had good, loving parents.

My view is there’s no bad time to innovate.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

There is little success where there is little laughter.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

I believe if you keep your faith, you keep your trust, you keep the right attitude, if you’re grateful, you’ll see God open up new doors.

Such is the feebleness of humanity, such is its perversity, that doubtless it is better for it to be subject to all possible superstitions, as long as they are not murderous, than to live without religion.

The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend.

At the beginning when the child is coming, people worry the child may be deformed. When a healthy boy or child comes, people are very happy for a short moment.

Falsehood is a perennial spring.

Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable.

Fear is real, but so is love.

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.

Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

Only those who want everything done for them are bored.

It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.

Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.

Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb.

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.

Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.

Only the insecure strive for security.

Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness… and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.

Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars – mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?

There is so much that people take for granted.

I still think I am the greatest.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.

We fear that this moment will end, that we won’t get what we need, that we will lose what we love, or that we will not be safe. Often, our biggest fear is the knowledge that one day our bodies will cease functioning. So even when we are surrounded by all the conditions for happiness, our joy is not complete.

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.

God will prepare everything for our perfect happiness in heaven, and if it takes my dog being there, I believe he’ll be there.

I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.

Giving is true having.

The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life… Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It’s a battle you can’t hope to win – it’s a battle that’s going to go on forever. It’s part of the human condition.

The more centuries that I am able to score, the happier I will be.

The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.

Can people who hunger so desperately for what other people have ever have enough?

When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.

The happiest people I know as a nation are the Burmese; their brightness and cheeriness are proverbial. Kindness to animals is one of their greatest ‚weaknesses‘; no Burmese will kill an animal, even if it is to put it out of pain.

How can one preach goodness and love to men without at the same time offering them an interpretation of the World that justifies this goodness and this love?

Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.

I heard a definition once: Happiness is health and a short memory! I wish I’d invented it, because it is very true.

It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.

Thinking fragments reality – it cuts it up into conceptual bits and pieces.

We give speeches and pin ribbons onto uniforms, etch names into walls. And all that is fine, but too often, all those tributes, all those words aren’t always backed up by action. And that felt like such a stark contrast to me, because, as we all know, our military is all about action.

Some people feel that the world owes them a living.

The spiritual is the parent of the practical.

I don’t fight in chase of an individual. I hear this sometimes where fighters work their whole careers to reach a matchup with a certain individual. I do not think in that way.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.

Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

Peace is its own reward.