The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them.

The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.

I got a lot of support from my parents. That’s the one thing I always appreciated. They didn’t tell me I was being stupid; they told me I was being funny.

After all, life hasn’t much to offer except youth, and I suppose for older people, the love of youth in others.

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

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.

We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes; we have no wish to find them alike.

I don’t want flowers or candy or anything like that. I just want somebody to say, ‚Wow, you’ve done a great job.‘

It seems like a lot of people seek their peace in things. And most of us are not even satisfied with the things we have… we always want more.

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.

Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.

Life loves the liver of it.

We’ve been programmed, from the time that we were very, very little, about what we can’t do – about what is impossible.

There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.

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?‘

The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.

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.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.

Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again.

The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

Never be lucid, never state, if you would be regarded great.

We see God face to face every hour, and know the savor of Nature.

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

On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.

The more a person seeks security, the more that person gives up control over their life.

It’s always wonderful to get to know women, with the mystery and the joy and the depth. If you can make a woman laugh, you’re seeing the most beautiful thing on God’s Earth.

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.

Life is our dictionary.

Getting rich is about fun. It’s a game, and you have to treat it that way.

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

Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of dilemmas.

There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little problems.

The mind is everything. What you think you become.

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

It is wonderful to have someone praise you, to be desired.

Thou know’st the first time that we smell the air we wawl and cry. When we are born we cry, that we are come to this great state of fools.

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.

The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one’s appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

Do not seek to bring things to pass in accordance with your wishes, but wish for them as they are, and you will find them.

I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.

Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.

Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond.

It’s a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can’t stop playing the game the way you’ve always played it.

Old men are dangerous: it doesn’t matter to them what is going to happen to the world.

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.

Whenever a fellow tells me he’s bipartisan, I know he’s going to vote against me.

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.

The fellow that can only see a week ahead is always the popular fellow, for he is looking with the crowd. But the one that can see years ahead, he has a telescope but he can’t make anybody believe that he has it.

The act of dying is one of the acts of life.

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.

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.

It’s not that I’m afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.