“I love to see a happy child.
They find magic in everything.
This gives me pleasure and hope for the future.
A well-adjusted individual is a prodigious asset to the world!”

—  Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Last update May 14, 2022. History

Related quotes

Francisco De Goya photo

“Everything you tell me in your last letter, which is to say that to spend more time with me they will give up going to Paris, fills me with the greatest pleasure... I find myself much better, and I hope to be back where I was before... I am happy to be better to receive my most beloved travelers. This improvement I owe to Molina.”

Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)

letter to Javier (his only son), from Madrid, Summer of 1827; as quoted by Robert Hughes, in: Goya. Borzoi Book - Alfred Knopf, New York, 2003, p. 401 – note 15
1820s

Gottfried Leibniz photo

“TO LOVE is to find pleasure in the happiness of others.”

Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) German mathematician and philosopher

"A Dialogue" (after 1695), as quoted in The Shorter Leibniz Texts (2006) http://books.google.com/books?id=oFoCY3xJ8nkC&dq edited by Lloyd H. Strickland, p. 170
Context: TO LOVE is to find pleasure in the happiness of others. Thus the habit of loving someone is nothing other than BENEVOLENCE by which we want the good of others, not for the profit that we gain from it, but because it is agreeable to us in itself.
CHARITY is a general benevolence. And JUSTICE is charity in accordance with wisdom. … so that one does not do harm to someone without necessity, and that one does as much good as one can, but especially where it is best employed.

Ellen Page photo

“Thank you. Thank for inspiring me. Thank you for giving me hope, and please keep changing the world for people like me. Happy Valentine’s Day. I love you.”

Ellen Page (1987) Canadian actress

Coming Out Speech (2014)
Context: There are too many kids out there suffering from bullying, rejection, or simply being mistreated because of who they are. Too many dropouts. Too much abuse. Too many homeless. Too many suicides. You can change that and you are changing it. But you never needed me to tell you that. That’s why this was a little bit weird. The only thing I can really say is what I’ve been building up to for the past five minutes. Thank you. Thank for inspiring me. Thank you for giving me hope, and please keep changing the world for people like me. Happy Valentine’s Day. I love you.

Gloria Estefan photo

“Till I had you I didn't know that I was missing out. Had to grow up and see the world through different shades of doubt. Give me one more chance to dream again. One more chance to feel again through your young heart. If only for one day let me try. I wanna see Christmas through your eyes. I want everything to be the way it used to be. Back to being a child again, thinking the world was mine... I see the rain, you see the rainbow hiding in the clouds. Never afraid to let your love show. Won't you show me how. Wanna learn how to believe again. Find the innocence in me again, through your young heart. Help me find a way, help me try. I wanna see Christmas through your eyes. I want everything to be the way it used to be. Back to being a child again, thinking the world was kind. I wanna see Christmas, Christmas through your eyes.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Christmas Through Your Eyes
2007, 2008

Cassandra Clare photo

“As long as she is alive and well and happy in this world, I will find a way to be happy as well, even if it is not beside her”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Sue Grafton photo

“No one with a happy childhood ever amounts to much in this world. They are so well adjusted, they never are driven to achieve anything.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

New York Times, p. C10 (August 4, 1994)

Stendhal photo

“Were I to buy this life of pleasure and this only chance at happiness with a few little dangers, where would be the harm? And wouldn’t it still be fortunate to find a weak excuse to give her proof of my love?”

Stendhal book The Charterhouse of Parma

Quand je devrais acheter cette vie de délices et cette chance unique de bonheur par quelques petits dangers, où serait le mal? Et ne serait-ce pas encore un bonheur que de trouver ainsi une faible occasion de lui donner une preuve de mon amour?
Source: La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma) (1839), Ch. 20

Terry Gilliam photo

“Well, I really want to encourage a kind of fantasy, a kind of magic. I love the term magic realism, whoever invented it — I do actually like it because it says certain things. It's about expanding how you see the world.”

Terry Gilliam (1940) American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe

As quoted in "Salman Rushdie talks with Terry Gilliam", in The Believer (March 2003) http://www.believermag.com/issues/200303/?read=interview_gilliam
Context: Well, I really want to encourage a kind of fantasy, a kind of magic. I love the term magic realism, whoever invented it — I do actually like it because it says certain things. It's about expanding how you see the world. I think we live in an age where we're just hammered, hammered to think this is what the world is. Television's saying, everything's saying "That's the world." And it's not the world. The world is a million possible things.

Eckhart Tolle photo

“The future is usually imagined as either better or worse than the present. If the imagined future is better, it gives you hope or pleasurable anticipation. If it is worse, it creates anxiety. Both are illusory.”

Eckhart Tolle book The Power of Now

The Power of Now (1997)

“At this time of crisis, I find great comfort in returning to nature, the wilderness, the richness and vast scale of the land. It has shaped the American identity; circling back to the landscape gives me hope for the future.”

An-My Lê (1960) American photographer

Interview with ARTNews (March 3, 2020)

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