The joy of life is to put out one's power in some natural and useful or harmless way. There is no other. And the real misery is not to do this.

Life without absorbing occupation is hell-joy consists in forgetting life.

Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that, what have you had?

There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed, to trace our own progress in existence, by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow.

A man is an island in the only sense that matters, not an easy way to be. We live in mystery, a cosmos of separate lonely bodies, men, insects, stars. It is all a loneliness and men know it best.

The moment one is on the side of life "peace and security" drop out of consciousness. The only peace, the only security, is in fulfillment.

My trade and art is to live.

To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.

Better be left by twenty dears Than lie in a loveless bed; Better a loaf that's wet with tears, Than cold, unsalted bread.

Love, children, and work are the great sources of fertilizing contact between the individual and the rest of the world.