Because 101 years is an awfully long time.
Norman Lear’s legacy extends past the television shows and radio programs he produced.
He lived a storied life and along the way, he gathered and related plenty of wisdom.
Even more immediate than the lessons in Lear’s shows were the ones he spoke out loud.
Here are 10 great Norman Lear quotes about life, happiness, and everything in between.
In tribute, please share the most important life lessons you’ve learned in the comments section below.
Together, we can learn to live as better neighbors. After all, we’re all just a different version of you.
1. Living in the present
“When something is over, it’s over. And we are all on to the next. And if there was a hammock in the middle, that would be the best definition I could give of living in the moment. So, I think that’s what I’ve been able to do.”
2. Small happiness
“Life is made up of small pleasures. Happiness is made up of those tiny successes. The big ones come too infrequently. And if you don’t collect all these tiny successes, the big ones don’t really mean anything.”
3. Defining success
“Success is how you collect your minutes. You spend millions of minutes to reach one triumph, one moment, then you spend maybe a thousand minutes enjoying it. If you were unhappy through those millions of minutes, what good is the thousand minutes of triumph ?”
4. ”Another Version of You”
“My bumper sticker reads ‘Just Another Version of You.’ The sooner we agree that we’re just different versions of each other – we human beings – the sooner we will find some sense of world peace.”
5. Something every day
“I like getting up in the morning, and I like better having something to do when I get up in the morning.”
6. Looking back on your path
“I think if you’re feeling great about where you are, everything that led up to it had to be terrific.”
7. Some solid business advice
“The evidence seems clear that those businesses which actively serve their many constituents in creative, disciplined and thoughtful ways also, over the long run, serve their shareholders best. Companies do, in fact, do well by doing good.”
8. Worth a read
“My life without books would be like my life without clothes—naked. Like everyone else, I know that books warm up a room, but they do much more than that. They warm up the soul.”
9. What life is about
“Life is about having a good time, and it was a good time. We did some things well and some things poorly, but that was always the case.”
10. The game of life
“I think I learned early that it’s hard to be a human being. I don’t care what the circumstances of one’s birth are, it’s hard. If life hasn’t made mischief for us, we’ll make it for ourselves.”
