To be treated well in places where you don’t expect to be treated well, to find things in common with people you thought previously you had very, very little in common with, that can’t be a bad thing.

It’s very inexpensive to give a compliment.

I feel connected to my generation through the music, but I also fear for us. We’re in a very self-destructive state where we’re addicted to outside opinions and we all feel like we have fans.

You get one life. I’m going to embrace mine.

When we recognise the virtues, the talent, the beauty of Mother Earth, something is born in us, some kind of connection, love is born.

This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.

I say there’re no depressed words just depressed minds.

So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.

Information helps you to see that you’re not alone. That there’s somebody in Mississippi and somebody in Tokyo who all have wept, who’ve all longed and lost, who’ve all been happy. So the library helps you to see, not only that you are not alone, but that you’re not really any different from everyone else.

Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes shine to the stars. Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eyes, the swing in your gait. The grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of will and energy to execute your ideas.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

We can improve our relationships with others by leaps and bounds if we become encouragers instead of critics.

I feel like the reason people feel like they know me is because I’m giving you myself in the music. There’s where the connection comes from; you can’t Twitter that.

I don’t have many sad days.

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

We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.

If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.

If you don’t set the tone for the day, the devil will set it for you.

Every day is a gift from God. Learn to focus on the Giver and enjoy the gift!

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

My message is that God is a good God.

The power for creating a better future is contained in the present moment: You create a good future by creating a good present.

The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.

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.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

I love hugging people. I still hug everybody in my meet-and-greet lines.

When I get down, I don’t waller around for long.

Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.

Every day is a gift from God, no matter how old we are.

I love imperfections.

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.

What I love best in life is new starts.

With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.

Good is positive. Evil is merely privative, not absolute: it is like cold, which is the privation of heat. All evil is so much death or nonentity. Benevolence is absolute and real. So much benevolence as a man hath, so much life hath he.

Fear is real, but so is love.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined – to strengthen each other – to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.

While there’s life, there’s hope.

A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.

I get up every morning and say, ‚Father, give me strength today, not strength so I can lift 500 pounds, but give me strength, Lord, so when I speak, my words might motivate, might inspire somebody, Lord, when they see me, let them see you. When they hear me, Lord, let them hear you. In your holy name I pray.‘

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

I don’t want to make money, I just want to be wonderful.

I’m not happy all the time, and I wouldn’t want to be because that would make me a shallow person. But I do try to find the good in everybody.

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!

My dear brothers and sisters, the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.

So many people are looking at what’s wrong, and I try to encourage them to look at what’s right in their life. A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.

When one’s expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have.

I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life.

Your joy comes from how you think, the choices that we make in life.

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.

Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

When things are going bad, there’s going to be some good that’s going to come from it.

By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.

Optimist: day dreamer more elegantly spelled.

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.