Miriam had one beautiful evening with him in the hay... he talked to her of his hopes and despairs, and his whole soul seemed to lie bare before her. She felt as if she watched the very quivering stuff of life in him. The moon came out: they walked home together: he seemed to have come to her because he needed her so badly.

A good deed, said the prophet Mohammed, is one that brings a smile of joy to the face of another. Why will doing a good deed every day produce such astounding efforts on the doer? Because trying to please others will cause us to stop thinking of ourselves: the very thing that produces worry and fear and melancholia.

The only way I can get you to do anything is by giving you what you want.

A person's toothache means more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million people. A boil on one's neck interests one more than forty earthquakes in Africa. Think of that the next time you start a conversation.

I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: He is nothing but a boy -- a little boy!

If we want to make friends, let's put ourselves out to do things for other people — things that require time, energy, unselfishness and thoughtfulness.

The only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.

Once you take the time to consider the other person's perspective, you will become sympathetic to his feel ins and ideas. You will be able to authentically and honestly say, I don't blame you for feeling as you do. If I were in your position, I would feel just as you do.

I had the blues because I had no shoes, Until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet.

Three-fourths of the people you will ever meet are hungering and thirsting for sympathy. Give it to them, and they will love you.

Don't criticise them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.

people you are talking to are a hundred times more interested in themselves and their wants and problems than they are in you and your problems.