If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.

We all have experiences in our lives that change us, and we all learn from people, like my dad, but at the end of the day, it’s only us. And we’re only responsible to make ourselves happy.

See, when you drive home today, you’ve got a big windshield on the front of your car. And you’ve got a little bitty rearview mirror. And the reason the windshield is so large and the rearview mirror is so small is because what’s happened in your past is not near as important as what’s in your future.

I’ve made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I’m convinced of the opposite.

My own view is that every company requires a long-term view.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little problems.

You should hurry up and acquire the cigar habit. It’s one of the major happinesses. And so much more lasting than love, so much less costly in emotional wear and tear.

I don’t think culture is something you can describe.

Thank God, I never was cheerful. I come from the happy stock of the Mathers, who, as you remember, passed sweet mornings reflecting on the goodness of God and the damnation of infants.

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.

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.

Smiles are the language of love.

Eternal principles that govern happiness apply equally to all.

The bad fortune of the good turns their faces up to heaven; the good fortune of the bad bows their heads down to the earth.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

There really is no difference between the bully and the victim.

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.

Everything is funny, as long as it’s happening to somebody else.

It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow’s viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences.

What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may simply mean mental activity.

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.

There is nothing wrong with men possessing riches. The wrong comes when riches possess men.

Those parts of history that would undermine the vision of the Left – which prevails in our education system from elementary school to postgraduate study – are not likely to get much attention.

A happy family is but an earlier heaven.

Forty is the old age of youth, fifty is the youth of old age.

In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

Everything isn’t political.

Most people are happy being average. Most are happy being faceless in a sea of faces.

Each part of my life provided respite from the other and gave me a sense of proportion that classmates trained only on law studies lacked.

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.

History is written by the victors.

Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

What makes me happy is just curling up in with my mom in her bed and watching a marathon of ‚CSI‘ and ‚Grey’s Anatomy‘ episodes with pints of ice cream.

Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.

Optimism means better than reality; pessimism means worse than reality. I’m a realist.

I’m one of the luckiest people on earth.

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.

Maria is the best reason to come home.

Little things affect little minds.

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. The teaching of the church is clear, and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

If someone decides they’re not going to be happy, it’s not your problem. You don’t have to spend your time and energy trying to cheer up someone who has already decided to stay in a bad mood. Believe it or not, you can actually hurt people by playing into their self-pity.

So let’s be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.

Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.

I don’t know if I particularly want to be remembered for anything. I personally do not think I’m a great gift to the world. I’ve been very fortunate.

That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings.

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.

The wise are wise only because they love. The fool are fools only because they think they can understand love.

A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.

The bottom line is that everyone thinks differently.

It’s a tragedy, in a way, that Americans are brought up to think that they cannot feel for other people and other beings just because they are different. They think they’re different. It’s very limiting.

The learned is happy, nature to explore; The fool is happy, that he knows no more.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I have lived long enough to satisfy both nature and glory.

The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.

If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.