We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.

Physical comforts cannot subdue mental suffering, and if we look closely, we can see that those who have many possessions are not necessarily happy. In fact, being wealthy often brings even more anxiety.

The ‚Maddox Jolie-Pitt‘ Foundation’s work is inspired by our children and their connections to particular countries.

I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.

If you truly get in touch with a piece of carrot, you get in touch with the soil, the rain, the sunshine. You get in touch with Mother Earth and eating in such a way, you feel in touch with true life, your roots, and that is meditation. If we chew every morsel of our food in that way we become grateful and when you are grateful, you are happy.

Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one’s own religion.

No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.

The South is very beautiful but its beauty makes one sad because the lives that people live here, and have lived here, are so ugly.

Here ends my forever memorable first High Sierra excursion. I have crossed the Range of Light, surely the brightest and best of all the Lord has built. And, rejoicing in its glory, I gladly, gratefully, hopefully pray I may see it again.

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.

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.

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones on hand do more to produce a happy life than the volumes we can’t find.

Whether happiness may come or not, one should try and prepare one’s self to do without it.

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.

I am growing handsome very fast indeed! I expect I shall be the belle of Amherst when I reach my 17th year. I don’t doubt that I shall have perfect crowds of admirers at that age. Then how I shall delight to make them await my bidding, and with what delight shall I witness their suspense while I make my final decision.

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

I’ve said this time and again: My greatest concern coming into the White House was making sure my girls came out whole and normal, and decent and kind, just like I would expect them to if we were living on the South Side of Chicago. And it takes work to keep White House life normal for the kids.

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.

The deep, personal material of the latter half of your life is your children. You can write about your parents when they’re gone, but your children are still going to be here, and you’re going to want them to come and visit you in the nursing home.

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

In our ecclesiastical region there are priests who don’t baptize the children of single mothers because they weren’t conceived in the sanctity of marriage. These are today’s hypocrites. Those who clericalize the church. Those who separate the people of God from salvation.

Use, do not abuse… neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.

I was very worried about my mother, growing up – a lot. I do not want my children to be worried about me.

When I think of the love I feel for each member of our family, I sense, to a slight degree, the love that our Heavenly Father bears for His children.

If you’re not careful to think and speak words of faith, worry will creep in, and it will not only steal your peace and joy, it will steal your ‚today.‘ The present is the greatest gift God ever gives us. So hold on to the peace that’s yours in Christ. Don’t let it go.

The happiest people in the world are those who feel absolutely terrific about themselves, and this is the natural outgrowth of accepting total responsibility for every part of their life.

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.

When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, ‚Oh yes – I already have everything that I really need.‘

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.

Children make your life important.

Laughter heals all wounds, and that’s one thing that everybody shares. No matter what you’re going through, it makes you forget about your problems. I think the world should keep laughing.

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

Treat your children like the blessings they are or don’t have them at all.

Family and friendships are two of the greatest facilitators of happiness.

Money can’t buy life.

Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.

My mother insisted that her children read.

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

See, people are watching you. Especially your children. They’re taking in every single thing you do. They are like video cameras with legs. And they are always in the record mode. They learn more from what you do than from what you say.

Beauty is the promise of happiness.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Art is man’s expression of his joy in labor.

As a vulnerability researcher, the greatest barrier I see is our low tolerance for vulnerability. We’re almost afraid to be happy. We feel like it’s inviting disaster.

The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy.

Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat; the redeeming things are not happiness and pleasure but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle.

It is not the body’s posture, but the heart’s attitude that counts when we pray.

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.

The value of beauty and inspiration is very much underrated, no question. But I want to be clear: I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior. I’m just trying to think about the future and not be sad.

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

Taking care of children has nothing to do with politics. I think perhaps with time, instead of there being a politicization of humanitarian aid, there will be a humanization of politics.

If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.

I love having an unlimited supply of cocoa butter.

Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.

Part of our tradition as black women is that we are universalists. Black children, yellow children, red children, brown children, that is the black woman’s normal, day-to-day relationship. In my family alone, we are about four different colors.

A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.

Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.