'Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results.'

'At every moment, we always have a choice, even if it feels as if we don’t. Sometimes that choice may simply be to think a more positive thought.'

- Singer Tina Turner (1993–2023)

Bob Dylan deeply admires Willie Nelson

The Nobel Prize-winning songwriter is a big fan of the country troubadour. When Dylan was asked for his thoughts on Nelson for a New Yorker profile, he offered a poetic monologue not unlike his lyrics, including a comparison to "the invisible air."

'You will never feel proud of your work if you find no joy within it; your best work is always joyful work.'

- Stevie Wonder (1950-present)

'It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.'

- Legendary boxer Muhammad Ali (1942–2016)

'The good ole days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems.'

- Billy Joel (1949-present)

'Sometimes the biggest problem is in your head. You’ve got to believe you can play a shot instead of wondering where your next bad shot is coming from.'

- Golf great Jack Nicklaus (1940-present)

Negative thinking spirals are often the result of uncertainty and anxiety

Psychologists suggest that a helpful way to deal with negative thinking is to remind oneself that setbacks can simply be setbacks, rather than a grand catastrophe. Positive self-talk, focusing on the factors we can control, and being altruistic are other tools that can help one escape negative thinking.

'I've come to the conclusion that life is for the taking and just too short to dwell on the negative.'

- Cranberries lead singer Dolores O'Riordan (1971-2018)

'All your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose love or hate … I choose love.'

-Johnny Cash (1932-2003)

'You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation.'

- Hollywood legend Bette Davis (1908 - 1989)

'Live a life so when I die, there's standing room only.'

- Tim McGraw (1967-present)

'If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.'

- Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

'Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.'

- Maya Angelou

'Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.'

- Judy Garland

'The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.'

- American musician BB King (1925-2015)

'You only go around once, but if you play your cards right, once is enough.'

- Frank Sinatra (1915–1998)

A quote by athlete Walter Payton

"When you're good at something, you'll tell everyone. When you're great at something, they'll tell you."

'I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.'

- Martha Washington (1731-1802)

'I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning ... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.'

- Miles Davis (1926-1991)

'Reputation is what others think about you. What’s far more important is character, because that is what you think about yourself.'

- Tennis champion Billie Jean King (1943-present)

'Voices ought not be measured by how pretty they are. Instead they matter only if they convince you that they are telling the truth.'

- Iconic singer Sam Cooke (1931–1964)

'In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.'

-Poet Robert Frost (1874-1963)

'Do something you really like, and hopefully it pays the rent. As far as I'm concerned, that's success.'

- Musician Tom Petty (1950–2017)

'A lot of singers think all they have to do is exercise their tonsils to get ahead. They refuse to look for new ideas and new outlets, so they fall by the wayside.' - Ella Fitzgerald

'In my experience, each failure contains the seeds of your next success—if you are willing to learn from it.'

- Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen (1953–2018)

'Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them.'

- Artist Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)

'If you can't do it with feeling, don't.'

-Singer Patsy Cline (1932-1963)

'Until you're ready to look foolish, you'll never have the possibility of being great.'

- Cherilyn "Cher" Sarkisian (1946-present)

'Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world.'

- Albert Einstein

'Keep working on a plan. Make no little plans. Make the biggest one you can think of, and spend the rest of your life carrying it out.'

- President Harry Truman (1884-1972)

'When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.''

- Mister Rogers (1928-2003)

'I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse.'

- Modern nursing innovator Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)

'I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.'

- Actress and singer Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992)

'How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.' - Anne Frank

'Men and nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men.'

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)

'I succeeded by saying what everyone else is thinking.'

- Comedian Joan Rivers (1933-2014)

1975: Betty Ford, remarks at the International Women's Year Conference

"Change, by its very nature, is threatening but it is also often productive."

A quote by Alex Haley

"Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you."

The case for optimism

Author, editor, and thinker Kevin Kelly makes an argument for optimism. Not only as a personal philosophy, but as a moral obligation, focusing on the need for optimism in overcoming challenges. Drawing examples ranging back to the Wright brothers,...

Nostalgia is a psychological coping mechanism that can help combat loneliness—but it's created from bias

Researchers have observed that though nostalgia can help counteract feelings of loneliness, our memories of the past are somewhat rose colored. Negative emotions seem to fade faster than positive ones, a phenomenon that they suggest may be a psychological coping mechanism so that memories don't hurt every time they're recalled. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Some Nobel laureates have expressed beliefs in pseudoscience after winning

Examples of the phenomenon, known as Nobelitis or Nobel disease, include promoting psychic research, harmful practices like eugenics, and seeing talking raccoons. Increased external pressures after a win and a greater spotlight may contribute to developing or exposing these beliefs.

'Love planted a rose, and the world turned sweet.'

-Author and poet Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929)

'I can’t go back to yesterday–because I was a different person then.'

- "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" author Lewis Carroll (1832 - 1898)

'Without goals, training has no direction.'

- Twelve-time Olympic swimming medalist Natalie Coughlin (1982-present)

'No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.'

-Author Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

'We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.'

- President Jimmy Carter (1924-2024)

Friedrich Nietzsche theorized that we will live our lives over and over again: the myth of eternal recurrence

Rather than a theory of physics, the idea is designed as a moral argument. While Nietzsche famously eschewed the Christian afterlife, he wanted to avoid the nihilism that results from no longer having such an ultimate horizon. In a mystical moment, the philosopher came to believe that the fleeting moments of our lives would be repeated, presenting a test: would you want to relive this moment? If not, he would argue, you're not living well.

'Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared.'

- Rapper Tupac Shakur (1971-1996)

'Why am I trying to become what I don't want to be … when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am.'

-Author Arthur Miller (1915-2005) in "Death of a Salesman"

Ray Dalio credits much of his success to his transcendental meditation practice

Dalio took up transcendental meditation after learning that The Beatles practiced it on a trip to India in 1968. He says the practice allows him to clear his mind, be more creative, and unlock his subconscious.