Echoes

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, And the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.

The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.

When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.

I am more and more convinced that our happiness or unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

There are two things that I want you to make up your minds to: first, that you are going to have a good time as long as you live – I have no use for the sour-faced man – and next, that you are going to do something worthwhile, that you are going to work hard and do the things you set out to do.

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.

To account nothing of one’s self, and to think always kindly and highly of others, this is great and perfect wisdom.

No one can lead a happy life, or even one that is bearable, without the pursuit of wisdom, and the perfection of wisdom is what makes the happy life. Yet even the beginnings of wisdom make life bearable. But this conviction must be firmly grasped and not merely adopted in words, if we wish to draw any strength from what we know.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

I have had three personal ideals: One to do the day's work well and not to bother about tomorrow. You may say that is not a satisfactory ideal. It is; and there is not one which the student can carry with him into practice with greater effect. To it more than anything else I owe whatever success I have had — to this power of settling down to the day's work and trying to do it well to the best of my ability, and letting the future take care of itself. The second ideal has been to act the Golden Rule, as far as in me lay, toward my professional brethren and toward the patients committed to my care. And the third has been to cultivate such a measure of equanimity as would enable me to bear success with humility, the affection of my friends without pride, and to be ready when the day of sorrow and grief came, to meet it with the courage befitting a man. What the future has in store for me, I cannot tell — you cannot tell. Nor do I care much, so long as I carry with me, as I shall, the memory of the past you have given me. Nothing can take that away.

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.

External things are not the problem. It's your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now.

Nowhere you can go is more peaceful — more free of interruptions — than your own soul.

The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company.

Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively.

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.