Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.

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

When you have kids, you see life through different eyes. You feel love more deeply and are maybe a little more compassionate. It’s inevitable that that would make its way into your songwriting.

If you’re doing a biography, you try to stay as accurate as possible to reality. But you really don’t know what was going on in the person’s mind. You just know what was going on in the minds of people around him.

It is with your aid, as the people, that I think we shall be able to preserve – not the country, for the country will preserve itself, but the institutions of the country – those institutions which have made us free, intelligent and happy – the most free, the most intelligent, and the happiest people on the globe.

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

It disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous.

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

It’s not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it’s the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.

For as one star another far exceeds, So souls in heaven are placed by their deeds.

Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.

To see things in the seed, that is genius.

Everybody is idealistic when you’re a kid.

It could be – and it has been argued, in my view rather plausibly, though neuroscientists don’t like it – that neuroscience for the last couple hundred years has been on the wrong track.

The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

I will never be happy without having someone. Going to sleep alone kills me.

You can’t be happy by doing something groovy.

There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.

Little things console us because little things afflict us.

If this were all to go away tomorrow, all the big success, I would still be very happy going from bar to bar playing music for people.

Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows.

If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.

One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.

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.

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

Fame will go by and, so long, I’ve had you, fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experience, but that’s not where I live.

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.

A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.

Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.

Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it.

You’re never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you’re never as bad as they say when you lose.

Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness.

Nothing is further than earth from heaven, and nothing is nearer than heaven to earth.

I think everyone should be with who they love.

In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame.

I think that people just have this core desire to express who they are. And I think that’s always existed.

It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.

It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.

Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.

When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.

The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.

The more you observe politics, the more you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other.

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.

Italy, and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy.

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

People say I look so happy – and I say, ‚That’s the Botox.‘

No finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point.

If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small.

I always kind of see how I want things to be better, and I’m generally not happy with how things are or the level of service that we’re providing for people or the quality of the teams that we built. But if you look at this objectively, we’re doing so well on so many of these things. I think it’s important to have gratitude for that.

Hell is a half-filled auditorium.

A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?

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.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

Nevertheless, whether in occurrences lasting days, hours or mere minutes at a time, I have experienced happiness often, and have had brief encounters with it in my later years, even in old age.