The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.

The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.

It put our energies to sleep and made visionaries of us – dreamers and indolent… It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin life rich – these are wholesome; but to begin it prospectively rich! The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it.

Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the world.

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.

Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.

It’s the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards.

I don’t believe in pessimism. If something doesn’t come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it’s going to rain, it will.

Analysis is like a lobotomy. Who wants to have all their edges shaved off?

A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over… is saying no good son should warn his mother of a cliff until she has fallen.

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

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?

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

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.

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

Solidarity is an attitude of resistance, I suppose, or it should be.

Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.

We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.

There are definitely elements of experience and stuff that someone who’s my age wouldn’t have. But there are also things that I can do that other people wouldn’t necessarily be able to.

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.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

We are anthill men upon an anthill world.

I never admire another’s fortune so much that I became dissatisfied with my own.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.

I tried being reasonable, I didn’t like it.

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.

I like gaps; all my stories have gaps. It seems this is the way people’s lives present themselves.

A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.

I don’t think about that. I wasn’t a kid growing up saying one day I’ll get an Oscar and make a speech. That wasn’t on my mind. So what I do is the best work I can do.

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are… than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

When things are going bad, don’t get all bummed out. Don’t get startled; don’t get frustrated. If you can say the word ‚good,‘ guess what? It means you’re still alive. It means you’re still breathing.

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

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.

I have found out in later years that we were very poor, but the glory of America is that we didn’t know it then.

My secret to staying young… Having no sense of time.

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

It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.

I always try to be smart. I try to treat all the money I’m making like it’s the last time I’m going to make it.

Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them.

At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Highly functioning self-actualized people simply never imagine what it is that they don’t wish to have as their reality.

Fear is real, but so is love.

What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.

It’s not the destination that matters. It’s the change of scene.

If selfishness is the key to being miserable, then selflessness must be the key to being happy!

It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.