It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.

It was as if all of the happiness, all of the magic of this blissful hour had flowed together into these stirring, bittersweet tones and flowed away, becoming temporal and transitory once more.

There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.

I’m not big on to-do lists. Instead, I use e-mail and desktop folders and my online calendar. So when I walk up to my desk, I can focus on the e-mails I’ve flagged and check the folders that are monitoring particular projects and particular blogs.

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o’clock is a scoundrel.

I have no idols. I admire work, dedication and competence.

At least the Pilgrim Fathers used to shoot Indians: the Pilgrim Children merely punch time clocks.

The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools.

Oh, yes; you Virginians shed barrels of perspiration while standing off at a distance and superintending the work your slaves do for you. It is different with us. Here it is every fellow for himself, or he doesn’t get there.

Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.

If you’re not producing as much as you consume, or perhaps a little more, then clearly we cannot use the big organization of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us, and it can’t be of very much use to yourself.

I’ve never managed to keep a journal longer than two weeks.

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

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

When you’re around me and really see that all I do is live and breathe for my work, it’s not strange, it’s just Gaga.

People are so caught in a routine, doing the same things over and over.

When Thomas Edison worked late into the night on the electric light, he had to do it by gas lamp or candle. I’m sure it made the work seem that much more urgent.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

If we live a self-directed, self-motivated, self-centered life, always needing to get our own way, then we’re going to be miserable. In fact, many times we believe it’s our problems that are making us unhappy when, in reality, it’s because we’re focused on ourselves!

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.

Where thou art, that is home.

We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest.

Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

Prospering just doesn’t have to do with money.

I only live in my music, and I have scarcely begun one thing when I start on another. As I am now working, I am often engaged on three or four things at the same time.

Whether happiness may come or not, one should try and prepare one’s self to do without it.

If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.

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.

If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.

I like the city. I like the concrete. I like big business. I like being a CEO of my own company and having a lot of responsibilities. At the same time, when I can go off with a backpack or off on a surfboard or even off on a run somewhere in the woods – that’s where I’m really happy.

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.

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

The child in you, like all children, loves to laugh, to be around people who can laugh at themselves and life. Children instinctively know that the more laughter we have in our lives, the better.

Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy.

The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don’t have.

I can’t say that my disability has helped my work, but it has allowed me to concentrate on research without having to lecture or sit on boring committees.

I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one. And I’m still fanatical, but now I’m a little less fanatical.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.

I always have to be writing.

Those who cannot work with their hearts achieve but a hollow, half-hearted success that breeds bitterness all around.

I realize I don’t do a very good job in keeping up to date, but I try to.

My goals are so high that I don’t have time to relax in any way, shape or form.

I’m a slow worker; I’m, I think, a steady worker.

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

Being happy is a matter of personal taste.

Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.

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.

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy. My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.

Fires can’t be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

True happiness is… to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.

If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.

Amour is the one human activity of any importance in which laughter and pleasure preponderate, if ever so slightly, over misery and pain.

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

The joy and love that I get from playing football are unbelievable. It is such a feeling that I want to give everything that I have got. I just enjoy it, I am living a life that I never even dreamt of.

If we are to be happy, we must first react against our tendency to follow the line of least resistance, a tendency that causes us either to remain as we are, or to look primarily to activities external to ourselves for what will provide new impetus to our lives.