Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist
Response to Harold Bell, question about his view on friendship in an Interview (video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InSFYdFaS3E.
A collection of quotes on the topic of cheer, doing, use, likeness.
Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist
Response to Harold Bell, question about his view on friendship in an Interview (video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InSFYdFaS3E.
“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Variant of this quote "The best way to cheer yourself is to cheer somebody else up." is misattributed to Albert Einstein.
Source: According Quote Investigator Mark Twain did write a version of this saying in a personal notebook in 1896, and it was published by 1935 in “Mark Twain’s Notebook”. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/12/21/cheer-somebody/
Joanne K. Rowling (1965) British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series
2000s <br class="br">Context: Depression is the most unpleasant thing I have ever experienced. … It is that absence of being able to envisage that you will ever be cheerful again. The absence of hope. That very deadened feeling, which is so very different from feeling sad. Sad hurts but it's a healthy feeling. It's a necessary thing to feel. Depression is very different.<br><br>As quoted in "J. K. Rowling : The Interview," by Ann Treneman in The Times (30 June 2000) http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/0600-times-treneman.html
Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter
Quote in a letter from Giverny to Gustave Geffroy, 23 November 1894; as cited in: P. Michael Doran (2001), Art Conversations with Cézanne, p. 3
1890 - 1900
“Be cheerful, do good, and let the sparrows chirp.”
John Bosco (1815–1888) Italian Roman Catholic priest, educator and writer
Source: http://www.jugendherberge.de/en/youth-hostels/benediktbeuern%20don%20bosco205/leisure%20activities
Max Ehrmann (1872–1945) American writer, poet, and attorney
Source: Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life
“The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.”
Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman
“Cheerfulness is…the best promoter of health.”
Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright
No. 387 (24 May 1712).
The Spectator (1711–1714)
“This thought cheered Bozo, I do not know why. He was a very exceptional man.”
George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London
Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 30
Context: He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him), and took a sort of pleasure in thinking that human affairs would never improve. Sometimes, he said, when sleeping on the Embankment, it had consoled him to look up at Mars or Jupiter and think that there were probably Embankment sleepers there. He had a curious theory about this. Life on earth, he said, is harsh because the planet is poor in the necessities of existence. Mars, with its cold climate and scanty water, must be far poorer, and life correspondingly harsher. Whereas on earth you are merely imprisoned for stealing sixpence, on Mars you are probably boiled alive. This thought cheered Bozo, I do not know why. He was a very exceptional man.
John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author
The Yosemite http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/the_yosemite/ (1912), chapter 15: Hetch Hetchy Valley <br class="br">1910s <br class="br">Variant: Everybody needs beauty... places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike.
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom
William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer
The William Saroyan Reader (1958)
Context: The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the depth of his soul every man is. He is discontented with everything and everybody. The writer is everybody's best friend and only true enemy — the good and great enemy. He neither walks with the multitude nor cheers with them. The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never stops.
Banana Yoshimoto book Kitchen
Source: Kitchen
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter
As quoted in "The Joking Troubadour of Gloom" in The Daily Telegraph (26 April 1993) http://www.webheights.net/speakingcohen/feb93.htm <br class="br">Context: I am so often accused of gloominess and melancholy. And I think I'm probably the most cheerful man around. I don't consider myself a pessimist at all. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel completely soaked to the skin. … I think those descriptions of me are quite inappropriate to the gravity of the predicament that faces us all. I've always been free from hope. It's never been one of my great solaces. I feel that more and more we're invited to make ourselves strong and cheerful..... I think that it was Ben Jonson who said, I have studied all the theologies and all the philosophies, but cheerfulness keeps breaking through.
Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter
You Belong with Me, written by Taylor Swift and Liz Rose.
Song lyrics, Fearless (2008)
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) French painter
The previous Summer, at Barèges, while he lay with his leg in plaster, Lautrec had often been visited in the evening by his cousin, Jeanne d'Armagnac
Source: 1879-1884, T-Lautrec, by Henri Perruchot, p. 53 - written note in Nice, Winter of 1880
Jean De La Fontaine (1621–1695) French poet, fabulist and writer.
As quoted in From Grandmother with Love (2005) by Becky Kelly and Patrick Regan, p. 53.
"The Paradox of Our Age"; these statements were used in World Wide Web hoaxes which attributed them to various authors including George Carlin, a teen who had witnessed the Columbine High School massacre, the Dalai Lama and Anonymous; they are quoted in "The Paradox of Our Time" at Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp <br class="br">Words Aptly Spoken (1995)
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
The Gay Science (1882)
Arthur Ashe (1943–1993) American tennis player
Message to his daughter Camera, p. 341
Days of Grace: A Memoir (1994)
Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (1887–1976) British Army officer, Commander of Allied forces at the Battle of El Alamein
Memoirs (London: Collins, 1958), pp. 543-544.
“The saloon is a liar. It promises good cheer and sends sorrow.”
Billy Sunday (1862–1935) American evangelist and baseball player
Source: Billy Sunday Quotes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAfeTcqGTJA / www.famousquotes.com
George Linley (1798–1865) British writer
Song, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). This song was written and composed by Linley for Mr. Augustus Braham, and sung by him. It is not known when it was written,—probably about 1830. Another song, entitled "Though lost to Sight, to Memory dear," was published in London in 1880, purporting to have been written by Ruthven Jenkyns in 1703 and published in the "Magazine for Mariners". That magazine, however, never existed, and the composer of the music acknowledged, in a private letter, that he copied the words from an American newspaper. The reputed author, Ruthven Jenkyns, was living, under another name, in California in 1882.
Solón (-638–-558 BC) Athenian legislator
Diogenes Laërtius (trans. C. D. Yonge) The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (1853), "Solon", sect. 13, p. 29.
“But you will soon pay for it, my friend, when you take off your clothes, and with distended stomach carry your peacock into the bath undigested! Hence a sudden death, and an intestate old age; the new and merry tale runs the round of every dinner-table, and the corpse is carried forth to burial amid the cheers of enraged friends!”
Poena tamen praesens, cum tu deponis amictus
turgidus et crudum pavonem in balnea portas.
hinc subitae mortes atque intestata senectus;
it nova nec tristis per cunctas fabula cenas:
ducitur iratis plaudendum funus amicis.
Poena tamen praesens, cum tu deponis amictus
turgidus et crudum pavonem in balnea portas.
hinc subitae mortes atque intestata senectus;
it nova nec tristis per cunctas fabula cenas:
ducitur iratis plaudendum funus amicis.
I, line 142.
Satires, Satire I
Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor
I said, "You do know that this is Gabriel Iglesias, right?"
Aloha, Fluffy (2013)
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Letter to Colette, August 10, 1918
1910s
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)
Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement
"I bid you farewell."
Burying the Hatchet - BP Closing Address at the 3rd World Jamboree, Arrowe Park, 12 August 1929
Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist
Religion—a Reality part II. Secondly, "It is not a vain thing"—that is, IT IS NO TRIFLE. (June 22nd, 1862) http://www.biblebb.com/files/spurgeon/0457.HTM
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), part I, "The World of Science", chapter 3, "The World of Physics", p. 41
1940s
Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor
And, I'm spazzing out. [Gives excited gibberish]
Aloha, Fluffy (2013)
Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church
As quoted in General Audience of 23 April 2014, Saint Peter square in Rome (23 April 2014) http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2014/documents/papa-francesco_20140423_udienza-generale.html <br class="br">2010s, 2014
Daniel O'Connell (1775–1847) Irish political leader
O’Connell recalling the spirited conduct of the Irish soldiers in Wellington’s army, at the Monster meeting held at Mullaghmast. Envoi, Taking Leave of Roy Foster, by Brendan Clifford and Julianne Herlihy, Aubane Historical Society, Cork.pg 16
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer
Letter to Aurelia Plath (August 21, 1962)
Letters Home: Correspondence 1950–1963 (1976)
Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd
During the Los Angeles performance of "The Wall" at the Los Angeles Arena, California, February 1980
Miscellaneous
Lewis Carroll book Sylvie and Bruno
and some "Taxes!", but no one seemed to know what it was they really wanted.
Opening lines
Sylvie and Bruno (1889)
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1850s, Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society (1859)
Marcus Aurelius book Meditations
X, 12
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X
Context: What need is there of suspicious fear, since it is in thy power to inquire what ought to be done? And if thy seest clear, go by this way content, without turning back: but if thy dost not see clear, stop and take the best advisers. But if any other things oppose thee, go on according to thy powers with due consideration, keeping to that which appears to be just. For it is best to reach this object, and if thou dost fail, let thy failure be in attempting this. He who follows reason in all things is both tranquil and active at the same time, and also cheerful and collected.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: The man who is guided by concepts and abstractions only succeeds by such means in warding off misfortune, without ever gaining any happiness for himself from these abstractions. And while he aims for the greatest possible freedom from pain, the intuitive man, standing in the midst of a culture, already reaps from his intuition a harvest of continually inflowing illumination, cheer, and redemption — in addition to obtaining a defense against misfortune. To be sure, he suffers more intensely, when he suffers; he even suffers more frequently, since he does not understand how to learn from experience and keeps falling over and over again into the same ditch.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Letter to John T. Stuart (23 January 1841), Collected Works 1:229-30 http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;rgn=div1;view=text;idno=lincoln1;node=lincoln1%3A248 <br class="br">1840s <br class="br">Context: I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus
The monster to Robert Walton
Frankenstein (1818)
Context: Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation. Polluted by crimes and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer
From a letter now regarded as a forgery by Johann Friedrich Rochlitz http://www.aproposmozart.com/Stafford%20--%20Mozart%20and%20genius.rev.ref.pdf, http://www.mozartforum.com/Lore/article.php?id=108, http://www.mozartforum.com/Lore/article.php?id=106 <br class="br">Misattributed
Brigit of Kildare (451–525) Irish abbess and saint
Prayer traditionally attributed to St. Brigit, as quoted in Prayers of the Saints: An Inspired Collection of Holy Wisdom (1996), by Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, p. 77
“Cheerfulness is often a cloak that hides a life of sacrifice and a continual union with God.”
Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin
Souls hold no attraction – Heaven means nothing – to me, it looks like an empty place – the thought of it means nothing to me, and yet this torturing longing for God. <br class="br">Come Be My Light <br class="br">Source: Knoansw, A Simple Path Quotes – The Inspiring Book Of Mother Teresa, September 03, 2020 https://knoansw.com/a-simple-path-quotes-mother-teresa/
“I've done it, be of good cheer.”
Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp (1598–1653) Dutch admiral
Western European nobility » Maarten Harpertsz. "Maarten" Tromp (1598-1653) https://www.genealogieonline.nl/en/west-europese-adel/I157344.php Tromp's last words.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Source: 1860s, On Democratic Government (1864)
Quintilian (35–96) ancient Roman rhetor
H. E. Butler's translation:
Indeed nature itself seems to have given music as a boon to men to lighten the strain of labour: even the rower in the galleys is cheered to effort by song. Nor is this function of music confined to cases where the efforts of a number are given union by the sound of some sweet voice that sets the tune, but even solitary workers find solace at their toil in artless song.
Book I, Chapter X, 16
De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)
Original: (la) Atque eam natura ipsa videtur ad tolerandos facilius labores velut muneri nobis dedisse, si quidem et remigem cantus hortatur; nec solum in iis operibus in quibus plurium conatus praeeunte aliqua iucunda voce conspirat, sed etiam singulorum fatigatio quamlibet se rudi modulatione solatur.
Christina Rossetti book Goblin Market and Other Poems
Goblin Market, st. 28 (1862).
Source: Goblin Market and Other Poems
“a cheerful voice said in his mind.”
Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance
Source: Words of Radiance
“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”
Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist
Mike Royko (1932–1997) American writer and newspaper columnist
“Each age has deemed the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer.”
Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet
Markus Zusak book The Book Thief
Variant: I most definitely can be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that's only the A's. Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me.
Source: The Book Thief