A joyful heart is more easily made perfect than a downcast one.
Poetry is when you make new things familiar and familiar things new
The circumstances of our lives actually matter less to our happiness than the sense of control we feel over our lives.
Engineers, medical people, scientific people, have an obsession with solving the problems of reality, when actually. . . once you reach a basic level of wealth in society, most problems are actually problems of perception.
When you can't smoke, if you stand and stare out of the window on your own, you're an antisocial, friendless idiot. If you stand and stare out of the window on your own with a cigarette, you're a philosopher.
Reality isn't a particularly good guide to human happiness.
When you place a value on things like health, love, sex and other things, and learn to place a material value on what you've previously discounted for being merely intangible. . . you realize you're much, much wealthier than you ever imagined.
Wherever it is resisted, slaver dies away and freedom grows.
If it’s over, then don’t let the past screw up the rest of your life.
And suddenly, just like that, hope became knowledge. I was going to win. It was just a matter of when.
There are all sorts of losses people suffer - from the small to the large. You can lose your keys, your glasses, your virginity. You can lose your head, you can lose your heart, you can lose your mind. You can relinquish your home to move into assisted living, or have a child move overseas, or see a spouse vanish into dementia. Loss is more than just death, and grief is the gray shape-shifter of emotion.