There are trees of a thousand sorts, and all have their several fruits; and I feel the most unhappy man in the world not to know them, for I am well assured that they are all valuable. I bring home specimens of them, and also of the land.

Nature has always had more force than education.

Many people know so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They look within themselves – and find nothing! Therefore they conclude that there is nothing outside themselves either.

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

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

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.

It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

Man takes his law from the Earth; the Earth takes its law from Heaven; Heaven takes its law from the Tao. The law of the Tao is its being what it is.

Everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.

Human beings will be happier – not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That’s my utopia.

Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

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.

Fashion has become so whatever. I don’t think there are any stones left to unturn.

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!

You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

Most people are happy being average. Most are happy being faceless in a sea of faces.

The sun, too, shines into cesspools and is not polluted.

I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing.

My absolute favourite piece of information is the fact that young sloths are so inept that they frequently grab their own arms and legs instead of tree limbs, and fall out of trees.

I think it’s a very good thing to leave your country and look at it from afar.

In my later years, I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I’ve worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.

The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs.

It’s not always been a happy marriage. I guess I wanted a quick fix.

The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done.

The fact is: It’s true what they say about the United States. It is a land of opportunity. It is too various to get bored with it.

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.

The sky is the part of creation in which nature has done for the sake of pleasing man.

It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.

Then not only custom, but also nature affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality.

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.

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.

Where there is an observatory and a telescope, we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once.

Going to the woods is going home, for I suppose we came from the woods originally. But in some of nature’s forests, the adventurous traveler seems a feeble, unwelcome creature; wild beasts and the weather trying to kill him, the rank, tangled vegetation, armed with spears and stinging needles, barring his way and making life a hard struggle.

I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn’t that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed some breathing room. I’d already been translating French poetry, I’d been to Paris once before and liked it very much, and so I just went.

Growing up in the place I did I never was aware of any other option but to question everything.

As soon as I arrived in the Indies, in the first island which I found, I took some of the natives by force, in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts. And so it was that they soon understood us, and we them, either by speech or by signs, and they have been very serviceable.

Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.

Marriage is the most natural state of man, and… the state in which you will find solid happiness.

Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, should any ever do so, it is my intention to do all in my power to make her happy and contented; and there is nothing I can imagine that would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort.

I grew up in the north woods of Canada. You had to know certain things about survival. Wilderness survival courses weren’t very formalized when I was growing up, but I was taught certain things about what to do if I got lost in the woods.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow’s nest of that ship.

True Scouts are the best friends of animals, for from living in the woods and wilds, and practising observation and tracking, they get to know more than other people about the ways and habits of birds and animals, and therefore they understand them and are more in sympathy with them.

I have come to believe that this is a mighty continent which was hitherto unknown.

True happiness… is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

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

A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.

When you’re outside, and everything is highland, it’s like nature has its own sound, and that’s one of my favorite sounds. I really loved sitting still silently outside, in a tree or in a bush, to just think.

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

It’s better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone – so far.

How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!

Happiness doesn’t depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude.

Do not be very upright in your dealings for you would see by going to the forest that straight trees are cut down while crooked ones are left standing.