Read no newspapers.

Try to find a few friends who think as you do;

Read the wonderful writers of earlier times – Kant, Goethe, Lessing – and the classics of other lands;

Enjoy the natural beauties of your surroundings.

Make friends with a few animals.

Then you will become a cheerful man once more, and nothing will be able to trouble you

Bear in mind that those who are finer and nobler are always alone – and necessarily so – and that because of this they can enjoy the purity of their own atmosphere.

Albert Einstein, letter of 5 April 1933 to a troubled, unemployed musician living in Munich who was fearful of the rise of fascism around him.