Life is grim, and we don’t have to be grim all the time.

Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.

When I was 11 I became very depressed. It had a lot to do with the climate and ecological crisis. I thought everything was just so wrong and nothing was happening and there’s no point in anything.

When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.

There are many things that happen every day that we could murmur about if we let ourselves go there. But they really aren’t worth the effort it takes to get upset and gripe about it.

Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.

It’s a lot easier to stay idealistic if you don’t sign two to five next-of-kin letters every day.

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.

Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due.

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.

The devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in health or we suffer in soul or we get fat.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

It’s pretty intense writing about my own life, my own struggles.

I write songs that are like diary entries. I have to do it in order to feel sane.

I’ve 20,000 hours of clinical practice; you’re not naive after the first few thousand. I’ve helped people deal with things that most people can’t imagine.

I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.

I confused things with their names: that is belief.

If a man or woman is born ten years sooner or later, their whole aspect and performance shall be different.

I believe that when you think of the negative, and you get up discouraged – ‚There’s nothing good in my future‘ – I really believe it almost ties the hands of God. God works where there’s an attitude of faith. I believe faith is all about hope.

I’m addicted to placebos.

The superfluous, a very necessary thing.

Youth is to all the glad season of life; but often only by what it hopes, not by what it attains, or what it escapes.

There’s a schizoid streak within the family anyway so I dare say that I’m affected by that. The majority of the people in my family have been in some kind of mental institution, as for my brother he doesn’t want to leave. He likes it very much.

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

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

Don’t wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you’ve got to make yourself.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.

The true history of my administration will be written 50 years from now, and you and I will not be around to see it.

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.

Remember, you can always stoop and pick up nothing.

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

Keep in mind that no matter how perfectly you get your life in order, you will never be rid of all your problems. Problems are a way of life, always have been, always will be. But how you elect to view those problems is all up to you.

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.

Being happy is a matter of personal taste.

The way up and the way down are one and the same.

I never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.

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.

Life is too short for long-term grudges.

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.

One likes people much better when they’re battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.

I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It’s probably the most important thing in a person.

A child thinks 20 shillings and 20 years can scarce ever be spent.

We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression.

Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful.

You are not a problem that needs solving.

Guilt is cancer. Guilt will confine you, torture you, destroy you as an artist. It’s a black wall. It’s a thief.

I try to see the good in everybody, and I don’t care who people are as long as they’re themselves, whatever that is.

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.

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

Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

To do a great right do a little wrong.

We can improve our relationships with others by leaps and bounds if we become encouragers instead of critics.