'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.

'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

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

- Frank Sinatra (1915–1998)

'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)

'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)

'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)

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

- Cherilyn "Cher" Sarkisian (1946-present)

'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)

'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)

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.

How to think yourself into health

Can the right thoughts lead to a stronger immune system? Neuroimmunologists like Hai Qi study how drugs targeting the brain, as well as thought exercises, can prompt stronger immune responses to infection. This six-minute video investigates the radical claims.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

In preparation for this weekend's Eurovision finale, which is something like the World Cup of pop music, here's a young Céline Dion performing (for Switzerland?) at the 1988 competition.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

Quincy Jones' 'Big Band Bossa Nova' helped introduce bossa nova—a jazz-influenced Brazilian genre—to the US

Hookworm infection, though risky, may help fight certain autoimmune conditions by tamping down the immune system's inflammatory response.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

Researchers believe the brain consolidates memories, processes emotions, and plans for the future during dream states

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

In 2026, Finland was named the world's happiest country for the ninth consecutive year based on its wealth, social safety network, and high life expectancy, among other factors.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.