I can think of nothing more soul destroying in life than to persist in trying to do a thing you want desperately to do well, and to know that you are at the best second rate.
The happiness which we receive from ourselves is greater than that which we obtain from our surroundings. . . . The world in which a person lives shapes itself chiefly by the way in which he or she looks at it.
Join with those who sing songs, tell stories, enjoy life ... because happiness is contagious. Join those who walk with their heads high even when they have tears in their eyes. Avoid those who ... have never shed a tear
Most successes are unhappy. That's why they are successes - they have to reassure themselves about themselves by achieving something that the world will notice.
Chastity is a monkish and evangelical superstition, a greater foe to natural temperance even than unintellectual sensuality; it strikes at the root of all domestic happiness, and consigns more than half of the human race to misery.
Fame or integrity: which is more important? Money or happiness: which is more valuable? Success or failure: which is more destructive? If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself. 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.
Later she remembered all the hours of the afternoon as happy -- one of those uneventful times that seem at the moment only a link between past and future pleasure, but turn out to have been the pleasure itself.