John Quotes

Men ... always think that something they are going to get is better than what they have got.

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

No longer forward nor behind I look in hope or fear But grateful take the good I find The best of now and here.

Friendship of itself a holy tie is made more sacred by adversity.

Friendships like marriages are dependent on avoiding the unforgivable.

A cheerful friend is like a sunny day which sheds its brightness on all around.

In prosperity our friends know us in adversity we know our friends.

Make all good men your well-wishers and then in the years' steady sifting some of them will turn into friends.

Boast not of what thou would'st have done but do.

The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

The great business of life is to be to do to do without and to depart.

God when he makes the prophet does not unmake the man.

Yet in the maddening maze of things And tossed by storm and flood To one fixed trust my spirit clings I know that God is good!

Before me even as behind God is and all is well.

Happy were men if they but understood There is no safety but in doing good.

Since good the more Communicated more abundant grows.

A glass is good and a lass is good. And a pipe to smoke in cold weather The world is good and the people are good And we're all good fellows together.

The best-loved man or maid in the town would perish with anguish could they hear all that their friends say in the course of a day.

The point to remember is that what the Government gives it must first take away.

There but for the grace of God goes John Bradford.

His eminence was due to the flatness of the surrounding landscape.

Athens the eye of Greece mother of arts And eloquence.

He who does anything because it is the custom makes no choice.

The despotism of custom is everywhere standing up to human advancement.

Unquestionably it is possible to do without happiness it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind.

Not only is there a right to be happy there is a duty to be happy. So much sadness exists in the world that we are all under obligation to contribute as much joy as lies within our powers.

Happiness is not in our circumstances but in ourselves. It is not something we see like a rainbow or feel like the heat of a fire. Happiness is something we are.

The bird of paradise alights only on the hand that does not grasp.

Happiness sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open.

To find out what one is fitted to do and to secure an opportunity to do it is the key to happiness.

When men are rightly occupied their amusement grows out of their work as the color-petals out of a fruitful flower.

Best trust the happy moments. ... The days that make us happy make us wise.

Ask yourself whether you are happy and you will cease to be so.

If all were gentle and contented as sheep all would be as feeble and helpless.

Only man clogs his happiness with care destroying what is with thoughts of what may be.

A heaven on earth.

Art thou lonely O my brother? Share thy little with another! Stretch a hand to one unfriended And thy loneliness is ended.

The entire population of the universe with one trifling exception is composed of others.

Maturity begins to grow when you can sense your concern for others outweighing your concern for yourself.

In essence the renaissance is simply the green end of one of civilization's hardest winters.

History never looks like history when you are living through it. It always looks confusing and messy and it always feels uncomfortable.

History is past politics and politics present history.

More history's made by secret handshakes than by battles bills and proclamations.

The memories of men are too frail a thread to hang history from.

The honester the man the worse luck.

Our greatest good and what we least can spare is hope.

See everything: overlook a great deal: correct a little.

It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe with one trifling exception is composed of others.

I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility.

The difficulty with humourists is that they will mix what they believe with what they don't whichever seems likelier to win an effect.