"It is not enough to be happy,..." - Quote by Victor Hugo

“In the vast cosmical changes, the universal life comes and goes in unknown quantities, ... sowing an animalcule here, crumbling a star there, oscillating and ... entangling, from the highest to the lowest, all activities in the obscurity of a dizzying mechanism, hanging the flight of an insect upon the movement of the earth... Enormous gearing, whose first motor is the gnat, and whose last wheel is the zodiac.”

“The transept belfry and the two towers were to him three great cages, the birds in which, taught by him, would sing for him alone. Yet it was these same bells which had made him deaf; but mothers are often fondest of the child who has made them suffer most.”

“There is something more terrible than a hell of suffering--a hell of boredom.”

“Joy is a freedom. It helps a person to find his/her own liberation. The person who is joyous takes responsibility for the time he/she takes up and the space that he/she occupies. You share it! Some of you have it ... you share it! That is what joy is! When you continue to give it away you will still have so much more of it.”

“It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.”

“Would you deny your son or your daughter the ecstasy of finding someone to love?”

“Happiness does not consist in things themselves but in the relish we have of them; and a man has attained it when he enjoys what he loves and desires himself, and not what other people think lovely and desirable.”

“A man's wealth must be determined by the relation of his desires and expenditures to his income. If he feels rich on ten dollars, and has everything else he desires, he really is rich.”

“If we human beings rely only on material development, we can’t be sure of a positive outcome. Employing technology motivated by anger and hatred is likely to be destructive. It will only be beneficial if we seek the welfare of all beings. Human beings are the only species with the potential to destroy the world. Because of the risks of unrestrained desire and greed we need to cultivate contentment and simplicity.”