We must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.

No one is ever successful at everything that they do.

It’s in responsibility that most people find the meaning that sustains them through life. It’s not in happiness. It’s not in impulsive pleasure.

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

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

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

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.

Even when a person has all of life’s comforts – good food, good shelter, a companion – he or she can still become unhappy when encountering a tragic situation.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

There’s a scripture that says, ‚A merry heart doeth good like medicine.‘ I think that’s true, too.

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.

The man who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life, which is impossible to the pure egoist.

The doer alone learneth.

Honestly, I always believed in myself. For real, for real.

I think as long as I do a good job and put in all my effort to proving that I’m worth it, then everything should be fine.

If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

I always believe that there should come a time when your energy, speed, stamina should combine well with your brains.

I lived a sloppy life. So I took very small increments in my life. I started making my bed. I started cleaning my room. There were dishes in the sink. It started off with doing small house chores. I saw that the yard needed to be mowed. So instead of being told it needed to be mowed, I would mow it.

The older you get, the better you get.

We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.

If someone decides they’re not going to be happy, it’s not your problem. You don’t have to spend your time and energy trying to cheer up someone who has already decided to stay in a bad mood. Believe it or not, you can actually hurt people by playing into their self-pity.

It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh.

Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.

I’m not going to change the world. You’re not going to change the world. But we can help – we can all help.

I’ve arrived at the place if I’m not taking a career risk, I’m not happy. If I’m scared, then I know I’m being challenged.

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

You can’t go backward in life.

I don’t know how to live good. I only know how to suffer.

Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.

For a long time, I had the idea that I would do a certain amount of work the best I could, and then I would reach a comfort zone, and I wouldn’t be pushed to write more. I would become a different person. It’s a surprise to me that this hasn’t happened. Your body ages, but your mind is the same.

It’s like a muscle – if you stop going to the gym or stop running, you get weak. The military teaches you these great values, but we don’t keep up the discipline on our own, and we lose it. So wherever you go, keep that discipline up.

Look at our society. Everyone wants to be thin, but nobody wants to diet. Everyone wants to live long, but few will exercise. Everybody wants money, yet seldom will anyone budget or control their spending.

It is with your aid, as the people, that I think we shall be able to preserve – not the country, for the country will preserve itself, but the institutions of the country – those institutions which have made us free, intelligent and happy – the most free, the most intelligent, and the happiest people on the globe.

To be honest, I never really considered myself to be too much of an actress. So, whenever I get the chance to do music, I’m always, like, just in it. It’s like, ‚Oh my God, I finally get to do this. I’m so happy.‘

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.

It is the nature of every person to error, but only the fool perseveres in error.

If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.

Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don’t need it: if you are sick you should not take it.

Read the Bible. Work hard and honestly. And don’t complain.

If I get stuck, I look at a book that tells me how someone else did it. I turn the pages, and then I say, ‚Oh, I forgot that bit,‘ then close the book and carry on. Finally, after you’ve figured out how to do it, you read how they did it and find out how dumb your solution is and how much more clever and efficient theirs is!

Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.

All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment.

A lot of dreams can turn to nightmares… if you don’t really work them.

Some habits of ineffectiveness are rooted in our social conditioning toward quick-fix, short-term thinking.

Man’s only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.

There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself.

The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.

He who obtains has little. He who scatters has much.

I know this sounds strange, but as a kid, I was really shy. Painfully shy. The turning point was freshman year, when I was the biggest geek alive. No one, I mean no one, even talked to me.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

The word ‚happy‘ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

Don’t wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you’ve got to make yourself.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

I’m always trying. Between every book, I think, ‚Well now, it’s time to get down to the serious stuff.‘

Your ability to use the principle of autosuggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession.

At some point in time, you definitely have to go drama. Not to say that you’re going drama just because everybody else does it. You do it to challenge yourself. You do it because, naturally, in the profession of acting, you want to show growth. You want to say that you take the craft seriously.