Focusing on Today Is Prep for Tomorrow, Not Short Sighted Thinking

The best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today's work superbly today. That is the only possible way you can prepare for the future. (Page 4)

It’s Hard to Be Miserable When You’re Doing Something About It

George Bernard Shaw was right. He summed it all up when he said: "The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not." So don't bother to think about it! Spit on your hands and get busy. Your blood will start circulating; your mind will start ticking-and pretty soon this whole positive upsurge of life in your body will drive worry from your mind. (Page 59)

You’ll Get Used To It

It is astonishing how quickly we can accept almost any situationif we have to-and adjust ourselves to it and forget about it. (Page 73)

Don’t Fight It

As you and I march across the decades of time, we are going to meet a lot of unpleasant situations that are so. They cannot be otherwise. We have our choice. We can either accept them as inevitable and adjust ourselves to them, or we can ruin our lives with rebellion and maybe end up with a nervous breakdown. (Page 74)

It’s All About The Same

I once paid a visit to Sing Sing, and the thing that astonished me most was that the prisoners there appeared to be about as happy as the average person on the outside.(Page 93)

Thoughts Are Reality

I now know with a conviction beyond all doubt that the biggest problem you and I have to deal with-in fact, almost the only problem we have to deal with-is choosing the right thoughts. If we can do that, we will be on the highroad to solving all our problems. The great philosopher who ruled the Roman Empire, Marcus Aurelius, summed it up in eight words-eight words that can determine your destiny: "Our life is what our thoughts make it.”(Page 99)

The Mind is its Own Place

Milton in his blindness discovered that same truth three hundred years ago:

The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven.

Napoleon and Helen Keller are perfect illustrations of Milton's statement: Napoleon had everything men usually crave-glory, power, riches-yet he said at Saint Helena, "I have never known six happy days in my life"; while Helen Keller-blind, deaf, dumb-declared: "I have found life so beautiful.” If half a century of living has taught me anything at all, it has taught me that "Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.’ (Page 103)

Your Unacknowledged Riches Are Greater Than The Lottery

Would you sell both your eyes for a billion dollars? What would you take for your two legs? Your hands?

Your hearing? Your children? Your family? Add up your assets, and you will find that you won't sell what you have for all the gold ever amassed by the Rockefellers, the Fords, and the Morgans combined. (Page 127)

Just Do One Good Deed a Day

So if you want to banish worry and cultivate peace and happiness, here is Rule 7: Forget yourself by becoming interested in others. Every day do a good deed that will put a smile of joy on someone's face.