Probably the happiest period in life most frequently is in middle age, when the eager passions of youth are cooled, and the infirmities of age not yet begun; as we see that the shadows, which are at morning and evening so large, almost entirely disappear at midday.

Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.

It is really very important while you are young to live in an environment in which there is no fear. Most of us, as we grow older, become frightened; we are afraid of living, afraid of losing a job, afraid of tradition, afraid of what the neighbours, or what the wife or husband would say, afraid of death.

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

These young guys are playing checkers. I’m out there playing chess.

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.

As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.

I don’t write so much now. I’m getting on 33, pot belly and creeping dementia.

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.

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.

The events that I have attended to mark my Diamond Jubilee have been a humbling experience. It has touched me deeply to see so many thousands of families, neighbors and friends celebrating together in such a happy atmosphere.

The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you’re wrinkled.

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

The revolution has always been in the hands of the young. The young always inherit the revolution.

Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

I only want my work to make people happy.

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.

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.

The older you get, the better you get.

A Scout smiles and whistles under all circumstances.

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.

I think that success is having fun.

My faith helps me understand that circumstances don’t dictate my happiness, my inner peace.

He who is contented is rich.

Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.

Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret.

We are looking for happiness and running after it in such a way that creates anger, fear and discrimination. So when you attend a retreat, you have a chance to look at the deep roots of this pollution of the collective energy that is unwholesome.

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

I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.

Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.

Use, do not abuse… neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

You have to like the present; if not your life becomes secondhand, if you think it was better before. Or that it will be better in the future.

There is no doubt that some plant food, such as oatmeal, is more economical than meat, and superior to it in regard to both mechanical and mental performance. Such food, moreover, taxes our digestive organs decidedly less, and, in making us more contented and sociable, produces an amount of good difficult to estimate.

I’m so old, I don’t buy green bananas any more.

People should pursue what they’re passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.

Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised.

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

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.

Upon the farm of the uncle with whom I lived, we did know of the mortgage as some dreadful damper on youthful hopes of things that could not be bought. I do have a vivid recollection that the major purpose of a farm was to produce a living right on the spot for the family.

I don’t have many sad days.

Well, I’m in my 60s now. I finally look it, I think. People until I was 60 would always say they thought I looked younger, which I think, without flattering myself, I did, but I think I certainly have, as George Orwell says people do after a certain age, the face they deserve.

Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.

Being happy is a matter of personal taste.

Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

People look to time in expectation that it will eventually make them happy, but you cannot find true happiness by looking toward the future.

God will prepare everything for our perfect happiness in heaven, and if it takes my dog being there, I believe he’ll be there.

He who is overly attached to his family members experiences fear and sorrow, for the root of all grief is attachment. Thus one should discard attachment to be happy.

I have a full and satisfying life. My work and my family are very important to me.

Children are all foreigners.

I wear make-up, and it gets a little bit thicker every year.

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.

A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.

Error is acceptable as long as we are young; but one must not drag it along into old age.

The happiest moments are when we sit down and we feel the presence of our brothers and sisters, lay and monastic, who are practicing walking and sitting meditation.

I know I will never be happy, but I know I can be gay!

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

Number of people have said to me, after hearing your thinking, their mind becomes much more happier.