“There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.”

— Charles-Louis De Secondat

“The negro is a child, and with children nothing can be done without the use of authority. We must, therefore, so arrange the circumstances of daily life that my natural authority can find expression. With regard to the negroes, then, I have coined the formula: ‘I am your brother, it is true, but your elder brother.’

“The combination of friendliness with authority is therefore the great secret of successful intercourse. One of our missionaries, Mr. Robert, left the staff some years ago to live among the negroes as their brother absolutely. He built himself a small house near a village between Lambarene and N’Gomo, and wished to be recognised as a member of the village. From that day his life became a misery. With his abandonment of the social interval between white and black he lost all his influence; his word was no longer taken as the ‘white man’s word,’ but he had to argue every point with them as if he were merely their equal.

“When, before coming to Africa, I heard missionaries and traders say again and again that one must be very careful out here to maintain this authoritative position of the white man, it seemed to me to be a hard and unnatural position to take up, as it does to every one in Europe who reads or hears the same. Now I have come to see that the deepest sympathy and kindness can be combined with this insistence on certain external forms, and indeed are only possible by means of them.”

— Dr. Albert Schweitzer

“The potential in many environmental issues is that if you undertake corrective action without appropriate understanding of the problem, then you wind up doing more harm than good.”

— Hugh Ross

“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”

— Justice Robert H. Jackson

“It is not uncommon for ignorant and corrupt men to falsely charge others with doing what they imagine they themselves, in their narrow minds and experience, would have done under the circumstances.”

— John Hessin Clarke

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it … Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

— Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future.” — Andre Gide

“To make a man happy, fill his hands with work, his heart with affection, his mind with purpose, his memory with useful knowledge, his future with hope, and his stomach with food.” — Frederick E. Crane

“For me, happiness came from prayer to a kindly God, faith in a kindly God, love for my fellow man, and doing the very best I could every day of my life. I had looked for happiness in fast living, but it was not there. I tried to find it in money, but it was not there, either. But when I placed myself in tune with what I believe to be fundamental truths of life, when I began to develop my limited ability, to rid my mind of all kinds of tangled thoughts and fill it with zeal and courage and love, when I gave myself a chance by treating myself decently and sensibly, I began to feel the stimulating, warm glow of happiness.” — Edward Young

“There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning and yearning.” — Christopher Morley

“Work and love — these are the basics. Without them there is neurosis.” — Theodor Reik

“If thou workest at that which is before thee … expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with thy present activity according to Nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which thou utterest, thou wilt live happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this.” — Marcus Aurelius

“Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation and freedom in all just pursuits.” — Thomas Jefferson

“I believe the recipe for happiness to be just enough money to pay the monthly bills you acquire, a little surplus to give you confidence, a little too much work each day, enthusiasm for your work, a substantial share of good health, a couple of real friends and a wife and children to share life’s beauty with you.” — J. Kenfield Morley

“If we could learn how to balance rest against effort, calmness against strain, quiet against turmoil, we would assure ourselves of joy in living and psychological health for life.” — Josephine Rathbone

“Five great enemies to peace inhabit us: avarice, ambition, envy, anger and pride. If those enemies were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“True happiness … arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.” — Joseph Addison

“May you have warmth in your igloo, oil in your lamp, and peace in your heart.” — Eskimo proverb

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

“Do you prefer that you be right, or that you be happy?” — A Course In Miracles

“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.” — T.S. Eliot

“The older you get, the more you realize that kindness is synonymous with happiness.” — Lionel Barrymore

“There is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving.” — Henry Drummond

“Make happy those who are near, and those who are far will come.” — Chinese proverb

“True happiness consists in making others happy.” — Hindu proverb

“All who would win joy, must share it; happiness was born a twin.” — Lord Byron

“Happiness is not so much in having as sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” — Norman MacEwan

“Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.” — Brone

“Unshared joy is an unlighted candle.” — Spanish proverb

“A joy that’s shared is a joy made double.” — English proverb

“Happiness is the cheapest thing in the world … when we buy it for someone else.” — Paul Flemming

“To get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.” — Mark Twain

“We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.” — George Bernard Shaw

“When someone does something good, applaud! You will make two people happy.” — Samuel Goldwyn

“Happiness is not perfected until it is shared.” — Jane Porter

“Happiness … is achieved only by making others happy.” — Stuart Cloete

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” — Marcus Aurelius

“I am happy and content because I think I am.” — Alain-Rene Lesage

“All happiness is in the mind.” — Anon.

“Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind.” — Alice Meynell

“A happy life consists in tranquility of mind.” — Cicero

“A man’s as miserable as he thinks he is.” — Marcus Annaeus Seneca

“The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts.” — William Lyon Phelps

“Unhappiness indicates wrong thinking, just as ill health indicates a bad regimen.” — Paul Bourge

“He is happy that knoweth not himself to be otherwise.” — Thomas Fuller

“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not our circumstances.” — Martha Washington

“Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.” — Leo Tolstoy

“Happiness will never be any greater than the idea we have of it.” — Maurice Maeterlinck

“We are never so happy or so unhappy as we think.” — Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“Misery is almost always the result of thinking.” — Joseph Joubert

“A great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness.” — Bernard de Fontenelle

“It isn’t our position, but our disposition, that makes us happy.” — Anon.

“A man’s happiness or unhappiness depends as much on his temperament as on his destiny.” — Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“The high prize of life, the crowning fortune of man, is to be born with a bias to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find what it is that interests you and that you can do well, and when you find it put your whole soul into it — every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have.” — John D. Rockefeller III

“They are happy men whose natures sort with their vocations.” — Francis Bacon

“The happy people are those who are producing something.” — William Ralph Inge

“Congenial labor is the secret of happiness.” — Arthur Christopher Benson

“To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.” — John Dewey

“If I were to suggest a general rule for happiness, I would say ‘Work a little harder; Work a little longer; Work!’” — Frederick H. Ecker

“To make a man happy, fill his hands with work.” — Frederick E. Crane

“Work is the true elixir of life. The busiest man is the happiest man.” — Sir Theodore Martin

“Happiness … loves to see men work. She loves sweat, weariness, self-sacrifice. She will not be found in the palaces, but lurking in cornfields and factories, and hovering over littered desks.” — David Grayson

“Every job has drudgery … The first secret of happiness is the recognition of this fundamental fact.” — M.C. Mcintosh

“There is work that is work and there is play that is play; there is play that is work and work that is play. And in only one of these lie happiness.” — Gelett Burgess

“Employment … is so essential to human happiness that indolence is justly considered the mother of misery.” — Burton

“Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.” — Leo C. Rosten

“A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“All happiness depends on courage and work.” — Honore de Balzac

“Man is happy only as he finds a work worth doing — and does it well.” — E. Merrill Root

“Life without absorbing occupation is hell.” — Elbert Hubbard

“There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed, to trace our own progress in existence by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow.” — Samuel Johnson

“Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run, and for most men this comes chiefly through their work.” — Bertrand Russell

“Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose … Get your happiness out of your work or you will never know what real happiness is … Even in the meanest sorts of labor, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony the instant he sets himself to work.” — Thomas Carlyle

“Few persons realize how much of their happiness, such as it is, is dependent upon their work.” — John Burroughs

“Joy is the will which labours, which overcomes obstacles, which knows triumph.” — William Butler Yeats

“Get happiness out of your work or you may never know what happiness is.” — Elbert Hubbard

“When men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows out of their work, as the color-petals out of a fruitful flower.” — John Ruskin