The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher)
Riches are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions; therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)
Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.
—Laozi (Chinese Philosopher)
In order to judge properly, one must get away somewhat from what one is judging, after having loved it. This is true of countries, of persons, and of oneself.
—Andre Gide (French Novelist)
Men are admitted into Heaven not because they have curbed and governed their passions or have no passions, but because they have cultivated their understandings. The treasures of Heaven are not negations of passion, but realities of intellect, from which all the passions emanate uncurbed in their eternal glory. The fool shall not enter into Heaven let him be ever so holy.
—William Blake (English Poet)
To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss Philosopher)
If you wait for tomorrow, tomorrow comes. If you don’t wait for tomorrow, tomorrow comes.
—African Proverb
How, then, find the courage for action? By slipping a little into unconsciousness, spontaneity, instinct which holds one to the earth and dictates the relatively good and useful … By accepting the human condition more simply, and candidly, by dreading troubles less, calculating less, hoping more.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss Philosopher)