The purpose of our life needs to be positive. We weren't born with the purpose of causing trouble, harming others. For our life to be of value, I think we must develop basic good human qualities - warmth, kindness, compassion. Then our life becomes meaningful and more peaceful - happier.
Courage becomes a worthwhile and meaningful virtue when it is regarded not so much as a willingness to die manfully but as a determination to live decently.
While it is all very well to distinguish happiness that is transient from that which is lasting, between ephemeral and genuine happiness, the only happiness it is meaningful to speak of when a person is dying from thirst is access to water.
We are...capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth, to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet. To enhance enormously our understanding of the Universe, and to carry us to the stars.
Of course, there [in China] has to be chaos. It has to be crazy, and I don't think there's anything wrong about it except this government, which is really incapable of doing anything meaningful.