I was born poor and without religion, under a happy sky, feeling harmony, not hostility, in nature. I began not by feeling torn, but in plenitude.

Most women in my family start to get sick and start dying in their 40s, and I am going to be very happy to become 50 and 60. I love getting older.

The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.

When you draw or paint a tree, you do not imitate the tree; you do not copy it exactly as it is, which would be mere photography. To be free to paint a tree or a flower or a sunset, you have to feel what it conveys to you: the significance, the meaning of it.

All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.

Terrorists are not following Islam. Killing people and blowing up people and dropping bombs in places and all this is not the way to spread the word of Islam. So people realize now that all Muslims are not terrorists.

I’m an atheist.

To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes.

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.

My mother was a public school teacher in Virginia, and we didn’t have any money, we just survived on happiness, on being a happy family.

I didn’t go to school for a full year until I was 12. In the summer I was a wild child in the woods, with no shoes, and in the fall it was back to the city, shoe shops and school.

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.

He has the most who is most content with the least.

It seems like a lot of people seek their peace in things. And most of us are not even satisfied with the things we have… we always want more.

Italy, and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy.

The belief that the world is getting worse, that we can’t solve extreme poverty and disease, isn’t just mistaken. It is harmful.

We turn toward God only to obtain the impossible.

I’m a child of God first. Before I became a celebrity, I was baptized a Christian.

God’s Spirit moves through us and the world at a pace that can never be constricted by any one religious paradigm.

If you’re in trouble, or hurt or need – go to the poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help – the only ones.

All these walls that keep us from loving each other as one family or one race – racism, religion, where we grew up, whatever, class, socioeconomic – what makes us be so selfish and prideful, what keeps us from wanting to help the next man, what makes us be so focused on a personal legacy as opposed to the entire legacy of a race.

By respect for life we become religious in a way that is elementary, profound and alive.

The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.

Going to the woods is going home, for I suppose we came from the woods originally. But in some of nature’s forests, the adventurous traveler seems a feeble, unwelcome creature; wild beasts and the weather trying to kill him, the rank, tangled vegetation, armed with spears and stinging needles, barring his way and making life a hard struggle.

I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

Theology is unnecessary.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

I believe that there are many herbs and many trees that are worth much in Europe for dyes and for medicines; but I do not know, and this causes me great sorrow. Arriving at this cape, I found the smell of the trees and flowers so delicious that it seemed the pleasantest thing in the world.

It’s one thing to be religious, but it’s another thing to make religion your policy.

Life in abundance comes only through great love.

Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry, stressed or offended. But what you’re doing when you indulge these negative emotions is giving something outside yourself power over your happiness. You can choose to not let little things upset you.

The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.

Lack of money is the root of all evil.

My songs have always been frustrating themes, relationships that I’ve had. And now that I’m in love, I expect it to be really happy, or at least there won’t be half as much anger as there was.

My children, to the extent that they have found religion, have found it from me, in that I insist on at least a modicum of religious education for them.

It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top.

My dad had a church of 90 people when I was born. It was just, over the years it continued to grow.

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.

Nothing on this earth is standing still. It’s either growing or it’s dying. No matter if it’s a tree or a human being.

A man’s as miserable as he thinks he is.

Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound, content to breathe his native air in his own ground.

Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.

Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.

Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

Laughter heals all wounds, and that’s one thing that everybody shares. No matter what you’re going through, it makes you forget about your problems. I think the world should keep laughing.

There are many people in South Africa who are rich and who can share those riches with those not so fortunate who have not been able to conquer poverty.

He who is overly attached to his family members experiences fear and sorrow, for the root of all grief is attachment. Thus one should discard attachment to be happy.

Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.

I think there’s every reason this 21st century will be much happier.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.

If someone has a really great boyfriend or career, I think, it’s cool that happens.

Don’t be misled by those who claim God doesn’t exist, because He does.

Use, do not abuse… neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

We want to answer this classical question, who am I? So I think that most of our works are for art, or whatever we do, including science or religion, tried to answer that question.

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.

Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor.

That I am not a member of any Christian church is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures, and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular.

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever – this is a somewhat new kind of religion.