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

As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.

If life is a checker game, someone else is moving the pieces. It isn’t us. Don’t be surprised by amazing coincidences. There are no accidents. Consider, as I learned to do, the incredible interconnectedness of all of life.

A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.

It’s so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see one.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

You are the universe, you aren’t in the universe.

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.

I like being able to be on the inside of music, rather than on the outside listening to it.

There are trees of a thousand sorts, and all have their several fruits; and I feel the most unhappy man in the world not to know them, for I am well assured that they are all valuable. I bring home specimens of them, and also of the land.

Always have something beautiful in sight, even if it’s just a daisy in a jelly glass.

The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.

There are no such things as Flowers there are only gladdened Leaves.

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.

Where thou art, that is home.

See how many are better off than you are, but consider how many are worse.

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.

We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.

Death is a commingling of eternity with time; in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time.

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

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.

Those who know me know I’m passionate about lists, and top of my list of priorities is my family. My wife Joan and I do not consider our legacy to our children to be wealth or fame but the opportunity to pursue happiness by following their own path.

My father wasn’t around when I was a kid, and I used to always say, ‚Why me? Why don’t I have a father? Why isn’t he around? Why did he leave my mother?‘ But as I got older I looked deeper and thought, ‚I don’t know what my father was going through, but if he was around all the time, would I be who I am today?‘

I am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don’t know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying – please let me live until I am finished.

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

There is no object so large but that at a great distance from the eye it does not appear smaller than a smaller object near.

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight… the truly wise person is colorblind.

I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.

Yeah, I did see where the people dissing me were coming from. But, it’s like, anything that happened in the past between black and white, I can’t really speak on it, because I wasn’t there. I don’t feel like me being born the color I am makes me any less of a person.

There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?

Joy is the serious business of Heaven.

We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.

What’s real freedom? Real freedom is being able to not have my way and still be just as happy as if I did.

I’m an idealist without illusions.

What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.

I’m not happy all the time, and I wouldn’t want to be because that would make me a shallow person. But I do try to find the good in everybody.

Ageing’s alright, better than the alternative, which is not being here.

We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.

If my life was a movie, no one would believe it.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time.

I love making people laugh. And I love laughing.

He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.

All the awards in the world, you can get into all the nightclubs, they’ll send you the nicest clothes. Nothing better than walking into your dad’s restaurant and seeing a smile on his face and knowing that your mom and dad and your sister are real proud of you.

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.

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.

Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.

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.

Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.

Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore; only the life I have lived. The pain now is part of the happiness then.

I’m never a reliable narrator, unbiased or objective.

If you like it you should enjoy it! Moderation in everything. If there’s things you really love, you should enjoy. You get one life, so you should enjoy it.

Life opens up opportunities to you, and you either take them or you stay afraid of taking them.

To see things in the seed, that is genius.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it.

Being young is a great advantage, since we see the world from a new perspective and we are not afraid to make radical changes.

I have learned, in my life and work as a sportswriter, that big-time Sports and big-time Politics are not so far apart in America. They are both a means to the same end, which is victory… And why not? Victory is good for you, and don’t let anybody tell you different.