My biography of Frank Sinatra is not paean to his music but rather an illumination of the man behind the music who once described himself as 'an 18-karat manic-depressive who lived a life of violent emotional contradictions with an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as happiness.'

I believe there is a relationship between having an interest in the arts and the behaviour of society as a whole. Some politicians find it difficult that the arts is a weapon of happiness... Politics is often about deprivation rather than the opening up of ideas and nourishing creative endeavour.

The happiness of every country depends upon the character of its people rather than the form of its government.

The secret of happiness is the determination to be happy always rather than wait for outer circumstances to make one happy.

There is a set of religious or rather moral writings which teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness and vice to misery in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine and to which we have but one objection namely that it is not true.

Genuine happiness can only be achieved when we transform our way of life from the unthinking pursuit of pleasure to one committed to enriching our inner lives when we focus on 'being more' rather than simply having more.

There is no true love save in suffering and in this world we have to choose either love which is suffering or happiness. Man is the more man - that is the more divine - the greater his capacity for suffering or rather for anguish.

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved loved for ourselves or rather in spite of ourselves.

The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved loved for ourselves or rather loved in spite of ourselves.

The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed seeming to be dragged rather than to march to the intended goal. Something of this sort must I think always happen in public democratic assemblies.

I'm beginning to understand myself. But it would have been great to be able to understand myself when I was 20 rather than when I was 82.

Life should be great rather than long.

I am hoping that I can be known as a great writer and actor some day rather than a sex symbol.

I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.

The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.

There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.

I'd rather attempt to do something great and fail than to attempt to do nothing and succeed.

It is rather for us here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.

And I just think that we're at a point in our economic life here in our state - and - and candidly across the country where increased taxes is just the wrong way to go. The people of our state are not convinced that state government county government local government has done all they can with the money we already give them rather than the money that we have before.

I think if you have a two-story office and you hire someone who's handicapped it might be reasonable to let him have an office on the first floor rather than the government saying you have to have a $100 000 elevator.

The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to 'create' rights. Rather they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.

I would have been glad to have lived under my wood side and to have kept a flock of sheep rather than to have undertaken this government.