To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.

There should be a point to movies. Sure, you’re giving people a diversion from the cold world for a bit, but at the same time, you pass on some facts and rules and maybe a little bit of wisdom.

We all have to live together, so we might as well live together happily.

Never make friends with people who are above or below you in status. Such friendships will never give you any happiness.

The mind of the painter must resemble a mirror, which always takes the colour of the object it reflects and is completely occupied by the images of as many objects as are in front of it.

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.

It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Who sows virtue reaps honor.

I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. First, let her think she’s having her own way. And second, let her have it.

Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.

I’m grateful to intelligent people. That doesn’t mean educated. That doesn’t mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call ‚mother wit‘ means intelligence that you had in your mother’s womb. That’s what you rely on. You know what’s right to do.

He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything.

Once you publish a book, it is out of your control. You cannot dictate how people read it.

The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

Science is not only a disciple of reason but, also, one of romance and passion.

Wisdom is nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life.

I have learned from personal experience that putting trust in God means there will be some unanswered questions. That was a hard lesson for me because I naturally want to understand everything… to know what’s going on so I can feel like I’m in control.

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.

Chinese people need to be controlled; otherwise, they will do whatever they want.

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

I’m so happy I discovered early how wonderful music makes me feel.

Against eternal injustice, man must assert justice, and to protest against the universe of grief, he must create happiness.

He has the most who is most content with the least.

Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.

It takes a wise man to discover a wise man.

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.

What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.

Worry – a God, invisible but omnipotent. It steals the bloom from the cheek and lightness from the pulse; it takes away the appetite, and turns the hair gray.

Then not only an old man, but also a drunkard, becomes a second time a child.

A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man’s life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.

The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.

If you have to control people, you have to have an administrative force that does it. So in U.S. industry, even more than elsewhere, there’s layer after layer of management – a kind of economic waste, but useful for control and domination. And the same is true in universities.

When the external factors over which one has no control in a way start to become negative, it starts to affect our creative juices.

Israelis would mostly breathe a sigh of relief if Palestinians were to disappear.

Kisses are a better fate than wisdom.

The strongest and most effective force in guaranteeing the long-term maintenance of power is not violence in all the forms deployed by the dominant to control the dominated, but consent in all the forms in which the dominated acquiesce in their own domination.

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.

French fries kill more people than guns and sharks, yet nobody’s afraid of French fries.

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

Every step of life shows much caution is required.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.

The eyes of the soul of the multitudes are unable to endure the vision of the divine.

The man of life upright has a guiltless heart, free from all dishonest deeds or thought of vanity.

A day without laughter is a day wasted.

I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness – it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

I am not the first Buddha who came upon Earth, nor shall I be the last. In due time, another Buddha will arise in the world – a Holy One, a supremely enlightened One, endowed with wisdom in conduct, auspicious, knowing the universe, an incomparable leader of men, a master of angels and mortals.

The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.