If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves happy.

Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education.

I’m living a dream I never want to wake up from.

Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

I was in a terrible mess in my childhood.

My favorite affirmation when I feel stuck or out of sorts is: Whatever I need is already here, and it is all for my highest good. Jot this down and post it conspicuously throughout your home, on the dashboard of your car, at your office, on your microwave oven, and even in front of your toilets!

You make yourself broad. You make yourself appealing. ‚Hey, y’all, I’m cool with everybody.‘ That’s my message.

I think you can have 10,000 explanations for failure, but no good explanation for success.

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

I really started writing music to challenge myself, to see what I could write.

I’m tender on the inside.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

Whatever work you do, you think are you doing this for the good of the nation? That’s the basic training. The other basic training is discipline. Your life should be disciplined. The other thing they say is what work you get, do it well.

I’m just looking to learn, grow, stay focused, and become a better fighter and a better athlete.

There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.

No matter what your mission is, have some notion in your head. Forget the model, whether it’s government or nonprofit or profit. Ask yourself the more important question: Is my mission improving the world? Are you sure about it? Seek to disconfirm that all the time. And if you can, change your mission.

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one – keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.

Never marry someone in hope that they’ll change later.

I always wanted a family.

If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is.

Right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities.

What you have outside you counts less than what you have inside you.

We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.

The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.

Off with you! You’re a happy fellow, for you’ll give happiness and joy to many other people. There is nothing better or greater than that!

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.

I’m not a big believer in trying to jam stuff down somebody’s throat: ‚You’re going to do it my way.‘ I’d rather show by example and live my life and have people say, ‚You know what, I want to live like Joel has. He’s got peace and joy, and he seems content.‘

A man must now swallow more belief than he can digest.

I can’t keep somebody from being a star, and I can’t make somebody a star, and nobody can.

Where thou art, that is home.

Meditation is a vital practice to access conscious contact with your highest self.

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.

However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

The happiest moments are when we sit down and we feel the presence of our brothers and sisters, lay and monastic, who are practicing walking and sitting meditation.

The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

The idea of recognising your strengths and using them in as versatile a way as you can is cool to me.

Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.

Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.

I created myself. I have taught myself so much.

When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.

I think beating myself up sometimes and knowing I am not happy when I do it makes me work harder to do a good job.

As a vulnerability researcher, the greatest barrier I see is our low tolerance for vulnerability. We’re almost afraid to be happy. We feel like it’s inviting disaster.

Keep your nose out the sky, keep your heart to god, and keep your face to the raising sun.

Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.

I’m not really book-smart.

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

If you don’t set the tone for the day, the devil will set it for you.

Number of people have said to me, after hearing your thinking, their mind becomes much more happier.

When I found somebody who I fell in love with, it made me feel different than I felt the rest of the day. It was electrifying. That’s what inspired the ‚Off to the Races‘ melodies. That’s one of the times when you’re feeling electrified by someone else and they make you happy to be alive.

Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, ‚That’s life.‘

On Sundays when I speak, I hopefully give somebody something that they can use the next day at work or at home.

The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.

Let each become all that he was created capable of being.

Accountability breeds response-ability.