Happiness is an attitude of mind, born of the simple determination to be happy under all outward circumstances.

The essence of Ananda is both personal and sociological. Personally for people who seek truth or identities of God, it helps to be with other people who share those ideals. Environment is stronger than willpower, and when you are with people who have high ideals, it helps you to grow in your ideals.

I know that everybody is seeking bliss. And they're all looking for it mostly in the wrong ways, and as a result of that, they err, but there's no reason to hate them; they just don't know any better. Jesus himself on the cross said, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." And so people who hate you, that's their problem. It doesn't have to be your problem. I wish them well.

Laughter is a medicine you've got to use to drive away blues.

Religion is organized, and spirituality is what the individual feels in his relationship with truth and with God. And although spirituality may be expressed in a religion, many people are spiritual and never go to church. They aren't religious in the sense that they practice a certain type of discipline.

Those who walk, run, or slide downhill eagerly would rather not think about the long, hard climb back up the hill again.

The churches had left me cold, but I thought there's got to be a God. I remember going out, this is in Charleston, South Carolina, and my desire then was to be a playwright, and I was studying theater, and I went out one night, late at night, and I asked, "What can God be if there is a God?" I wasn't sure there was a God, but if there is a God, what must he be? Well, he can't be a judge, who's up there just waiting for us to make a mistake so he can clap us into hell. There's got to be something more than that.