“It’s a luxury to pursue what makes you happy; it’s a moral obligation to pursue what you find meaningful.”

So, listen, to yourself and to those with whom you are speaking. Your wisdom then consists not of the knowledge you already have, but the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom.

When existence reveals itself as existentially intolerable, thinking collapses in on itself. In such situations – in the depths—it’s noticing, not thinking, that does the trick.

Life is indistinguishable from effortful maintenance.

You’re not perfect just the way you are. You could be better!

Untruth corrupts the soul and the state alike, and one form of corruption feeds the other.

You’re going to pay a price for every bloody thing you do and everything you don’t do. You don’t get to choose to not pay a price. You get to choose which poison you’re going to take. That’s it.

Who cares if you are the prime minister of Canada when someone else is the president of the United States?

Every bit of learning is a little death. Every bit of new information challenges a previous conception, forcing it to dissolve into chaos before it can be reborn as something better. Sometimes such deaths virtually destroy us.

We believe that in reducing the scope and importance of our errors, we are properly humble; in truth, we are merely unwilling to bear the weight of our true responsibility.

To suffer terribly and to know yourself as the cause: that is Hell.

It is not virtuous to be victimized by a bully, even if that bully is oneself.

If you don’t say what you think then you kill your unborn self.

It’s appropriate and praiseworthy to associate with people whose lives would be improved if they saw your life improve.

Perhaps you are overvaluing what you don’t have and undervaluing what you do.

See the truth. Tell the truth.

Thus, you should never sacrifice what you could be for what you are.

For my best poems were all written when I felt the worst. When I was happy, I didn’t write anything.

Happiness is a state of mind, a choice, a way of living; it is not something to be achieved, it is something to be experienced.

But if we are truly happy inside, then age brings with it a maturity, a depth, and a power that only magnifies our radiance.

One can endure sorrow alone, but it takes two to be glad.

There are three classes of friendship and enmity, since men are so disposed to one another either by preference or by need or by pleasure and pain.

Happiness is not the absence of problems; it’s the ability to deal with them.

Do not let either the medical authorities or the politicians mislead you. Find out what the facts are, and make your own decisions about how to live a happy life and how to work for a better world.

Watch your manner of speech if you wish to develop a peaceful state of mind. Start each day by affirming peaceful, contented and happy attitudes and your days will tend to be pleasant and successful.