One who is too insistent on his own views, finds few to agree with him.

I think I can keep a rhythm to a beat, but there are quite a few people who would argue with me.

There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

It may be, it just may be, that life as we know it with its humanity is more unique than many have thought.

If you don’t get out of the box you’ve been raised in, you won’t understand how much bigger the world is.

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

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

I always have an optimistic view, no matter what it is.

There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.

I don’t go down the road of condemning.

Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.

The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.

You have to understand that people that are hurting are going to criticize.

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

I walk every day, and I look at the mountains and the fields and the small city, and I say: ‚Oh my God, what a blessing.‘ Then you realise it’s important to put it in a context beyond this woman, this man, this city, this country, this universe.

It takes no more time to see the good side of life than it takes to see the bad.

A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?

Remember you are just an extra in everyone else’s play.

I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it’s not imagination. It’s just a way of watching.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.

Whether or not I like a piece of data has very little bearing on whether or not I am likely to accept it.

We have one planet in our solar system that’s habitable, and that’s the Earth, and space travel can transform things back here for the better. First of all, by just having people go to space and look back on this fragile planet we live on. People have come back transformed and have done fantastic things.

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.

While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn’t the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.

People who think you could wave a magic wand and the legacy of the past will be over are blind.

What I have is a malevolent curiosity. That’s what drives my need to write and what probably leads me to look at things a little askew. I do tend to take a different perspective from most people.

Old age, believe me, is a good and pleasant thing. It is true you are gently shouldered off the stage, but then you are given such a comfortable front stall as spectator.

Mortality is very different when you’re 20 to when you’re 50.

Anybody can be specific and obvious. That’s always been the easy way. It’s not that it’s so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it’s just that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.

Upon the subjects of which I have treated, I have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be right than at all times to be wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.

Even with all of the things that are so awful, if you walk into your yard and stay there looking at almost anything for five minutes, you will be stunned by how marvelous life is and how incredibly lucky we are to have it.

One day it will be over, and I don’t care.

The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.

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

Don’t be afraid to see what you see.

Suppose I criticise Iran. What impact does that have? The only impact it has is in fortifying those who want to carry out policies I don’t agree with, like bombing.

You can’t have it all, all at once. Who – man or woman – has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

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

Happiness is within the reach of everyone, rich or poor. Yet comparatively few people are happy. I believe the reason for this is that the majority don’t recognize happiness even when it is within their grasp.

A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood.

From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That’s what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest.

He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.

In terms of doing work and in terms of learning and evolving as a person, you just grow more when you get more people’s perspectives… I really try and live the mission of the company and… keep everything else in my life extremely simple.

Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you’re going to live your life.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.

The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

The best advice comes from people who don’t give advice.

A lot of people don’t like the road, but it’s as natural to me as breathing.

We do not know what is really good or bad fortune.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

Go up in an airplane. Go high enough, and it’s like we don’t even exist.

Man does not live by soap alone; and hygiene, or even health, is not much good unless you can take a healthy view of it or, better still, feel a healthy indifference to it.

Life is like a wheel. Sooner or later, it always come around to where you started again.