“There is so much to love and to admire in this life that it is an act of ingratitude not to be happy and content in this existence.”

“I exist not to be loved and admired, but to love and act. It is not the duty of those around me to love me. Rather, it is my duty to be concerned about the world, about man.”

“Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and to be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence.”

“Happiness is closer to the experience of acceptance and contentment than it is to pleasure. True happiness exists as the spacious and compassionate heart's willingness to feel whatever is present.”

“There was so much goodness in my life. So much happiness. I wondered whether I deserved any of it.”

“Oh, love isn't there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.”

“Contentment and happiness didn't exist in my life for more than a few moments at a time, and they were really only illusionary. There was always something hidden. Lying in wait to spring up and ruin everything.”

“Happiness has to exist in the mind before it can exist in life.”

“The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. And that is not happiness.”

“I welcome each new day with a hopeful expectancy that I, too, will rise above the ordinary. For I am not content to live a merely "normal" life or settle for an average existence. No, I am destined for more--much, much more.”