Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Our life does not develop as a result of chance, but as a result of causes.

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

I'm a writer, and I will write what I want to write.

The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you.

You and only you are responsible for your life choices and decisions.

The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.

I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you are not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

Pain is certain, suffering is optional.

Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.

The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.

Decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do things, we can accomplish those goals.

Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.

It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.

Happiness is a quality of the soul, not a function of one's material circumstances.

The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.

I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness, glad of other men’s good, content with my harm.

All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

Sorrow prepares you for joy.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

We can secure other people’s approval, if we do right and try hard; but our own is worth a hundred of it, and no way has been found out of securing that.

At the center of your being you are the answer. You know who you are, and you know what you want.

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.

Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will - his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals.

Let us affirm what seems to be the truth, that, whether one is or is not, one and the others in relation to themselves and one another, all of them, in every way, are and are not, and appear to be and appear not to be.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

Accept – then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.