William Lyon Phelps Quotes
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Real happiness is not dependent on external things. The pond is fed from within. The kind of happiness that stays with you is the happiness that springs from inward thoughts and emotions. You must cultivate your mind if you wish to achieve enduring happiness.
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At a certain age some people's minds close up; they live on their intellectual fat.
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My religious faith remains in possession of the field only after prolonged civil war with my naturally skeptical mind.
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Never try to outsmart a woman, unless you are another woman.
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The final test of a gentleman is his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.
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You can learn more about human nature by reading the Bible than by living in New York.
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The greatest of all the arts is the art of living together!
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The teacher should make a concerted effort never to lose his temper in the presence of the class. If a man, he may take refuge in profane soliloquies. If a woman, she may follow the example of one sweet-faced tranquil girl who went out in the yard and gnawed a post.
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I believe a knowledge of the Bible without a college course is more valuable than a college course without a Bible.
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Unlimited power is worse for the average person than unlimited alcohol; and the resulting intoxication is more damaging for others. Very few have not deteriorated when given absolute dominion. It is worse for the governor than for the governed.
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The belief that youth is the happiest time of life is founded on fallacy. The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts, and we grow happier as we grow older.
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Every time you acquire a new interest, even more, a new accomplishment, you increase your power of life.
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The principle of happiness should be like the principle of virtue: it should not be dependent of things, but be a part of personality [and character].
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How essential it is in youth to acquire some intellectual or artistic tastes, in order to furnish the mind, to be able to live inside a mind with attractive and interesting pictures on the walls.
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In a start-up company, you basically throw out all assumptions every three weeks.
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Herein lies the real value of education. Advanced education may or may not make men and women more efficient; but it enriches personality, increases the wealth of the mind, and hence brings happiness. It is the finest insurance against old age, against the growth of physical disability, of the lack and loss of animal delights.
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If happiness truly consisted in physical ease and freedom from care the happiest, individual would not be either a man or a woman it; it would be, I think a cow.
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Why is it so many people are afraid to admit they are happy?
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Every man who is happily married is a successful man even if he has failed in everything else.
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The amazing activity of the cat is delicately balanced by his capacity for relaxation. Every household should contain a cat, not only for decorative and domestic values, but because the cat in quiescence is medicinal to irritable, tense, tortured men and women.
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If I were running the world I would have it rain only between 2 and 5 a.m. Anyone who was out then ought to get wet.
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I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget.
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There is never much trouble in any family where the children hope someday to resemble their parents.
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Life, with all it's sorrows, cares, perplexities and heart-breaks, is more interesting than bovine placidity, hence more desirable. The more interesting it is, the happier it is.