It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.
Scarcely one man in a thousand is capable of tasting the happiness of others.
This desire, and this weakness cry aloud to us that there was once in man a true happiness, of which there now remains to him but the mark and the empty trace, which he vainly tries to fill from all that surrounds him, seeking from things absent the succour he finds not in things present; and these are all inadequate, because this infinite void can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God himself.
Great happiness is the fire ordeal of mankind, great misfortune only the trial by water; for the former opens a large extent of futurity, whereas the latter circumscribes or closes it.--_Richter._
I think and think and think, I‘ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.
_Second part_: The happiness of man with God.
Almost all our misfortunes in life come from the wrong notions we have about the things that happen to us. To know men thoroughly, to judge events sanely is, therefore, a great step towards happiness.
Our life is not completely in our hands--we must submit to many things which we may smile at in our inmost heart, but which nevertheless are essential, not only to our happiness, but to our fulfilling the duties which we are called to fulfil. We ought to look upon the circumstances in which we are born and brought up as ordained by a Higher Power, and we must learn to walk the path which is pointed out to us!
~Contentment.~--That happy state of mind, so rarely possessed, in which we can say, "I have enough," is the highest attainment of philosophy. Happiness consists, not in possessing much, but in being content with what we possess. He who wants little always has enough.--_Zimmermann._
Never make friends with people who are above or below you in status. Such friendships will never give you any happiness.
We are content with personating happiness--to feel it is an art beyond us.
The happiness of man depends on no creed and no book; it depends on the dominion of truth, which is the redeemer and saviour, the Messiah and the King of glory.
Guilt, though it may attain temporal splendor, can never confer real happiness. The evident consequences of our crimes long survive their commission, and, like the ghosts of the murdered, forever haunt the steps of the malefactor.--_Sir Walter Scott._
Try for yourselves what you can read in half-an-hour, ... and consider what treasures you might have laid by at the end of the year; and what happiness, fortitude and wisdom they would have given you during all the days of your life.
To be happy is not the purpose of our being, but to deserve happiness.
One is happy as a result of one's own efforts, once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness — simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience.
It is beneath the dignity of a soul that has but a grain of sense to make chance, and winds, and waves the arbitrary disposers of happiness.
The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.
Love is the eldest, noblest, and mightiest of the gods, and the chiefest author and giver of virtue in life and happiness after death.
Le bonheur ne peut etre / Ou la vertu n'est pas=--Happiness cannot exist where virtue is not.
There comes forever something between us and what we deem our happiness.--_Byron._
~Grief.~--Why destroy present happiness by a distant misery, which may never come at all, or you may never live to see it? for every substantial grief has twenty shadows, and most of them shadows of your own making.--_Sydney Smith._
I submit that comfort is a diversion, and it’s not related to happiness.
The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go.
We see but the outside of the rich man's happiness; few consider him to be like the silkworm, that, when she seems to play, is at the very same time spinning her own bowels and consuming herself.
Only learn to catch happiness, for happiness is ever by you.
Das Gluck deiner Tage / Wage nicht mit der Goldwage. / Wirst du die Kramerwage nehmen, / So wirst du dich schamen und dich bequemen=--Weigh not the happiness of thy days with goldsmith's scales. Shouldst thou take the merchant's, thou shalt feel ashamed and adapt thyself.
Drawing near her death, she sent most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven; and her soul saw a glimpse of happiness through the chinks of her sickness-broken body.
For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
In order to make man happy, it must show him that there is a God; that we ought to love him; that our true happiness is to be in him, our sole evil to be separated from him; it must recognise that we are full of darkness which hinders us from knowing and loving him; and that thus, as our duties oblige us to love God, and our lusts turn us from him, we are full of injustice. It must explain to us our opposition to God and to our own good; it must teach us the remedies for these infirmities, and the means of obtaining them. We must therefore examine all the religions of the world from this point of view, and see if there be any other than the Christian which is sufficient for this end.
In vain do they talk of happiness who never subdued an impulse in obedience to a principle.
These tall and handsome ships, swaying imperceptibly on tranquil waters, these sturdy ships, with their inactive, nostalgic appearance, don’t they say to us in a speechless tongue: When do we cast off for happiness?
Married people, for instance, are demonstrably happier than single people; does this mean that marriage causes happiness? Not necessarily. The data suggest that happy people are more likely to get married in the first place. As one researcher memorably put it, “If you’re grumpy, who the hell wants to marry you?
How vainly seek / The selfish for that happiness denied / To aught but virtue!
The commotions that have taken place in America, as far as they are yet known to me, offer nothing threatening. They are a proof that the people have liberty enough, and I could not wish them less than they have. If the happiness of the mass of the people can be secured at the expense of a little tempest now and then, or even of a little blood, it will be a precious purchase. ‘Malo libertatem periculosam quam quietem servitutem.’ Let common sense and common honesty have fair play, and they will soon set things to rights. [Letter to Ezra Stiles, 1786. ME 6:25.]
Even should the whole human race be absorbed in one vast polity, within which "absolute political justice" reigns, the struggle for existence with the state of nature outside it, and the tendency to the return of the struggle within, in consequence of over-multiplication, will remain; and, unless men's inheritance from the ancestors who fought a good fight in the state of nature, their dose of original sin, is rooted out by some method at present unrevealed, at any rate to disbelievers in supernaturalism, every child born into the world will still bring with him the instinct of unlimited self-assertion. He will have to learn the lesson of self-restraint and renunciation. But the practice of self-restraint and renunciation is not happiness, though it may be something much better.
For present grief there is always a remedy. However much thou sufferest, hope. The greatest happiness of man is hope.
There is a large and secret brotherhood in this world, the members of which easily recognise each other, without any visible outward sign. It is the band of mourners. The members of this brotherhood need not necessarily wear mourning; they can even rejoice with the joyful, and they seldom sigh or weep when others see them. But they recognise and understand each other, without uttering a word, like tired wanderers who, climbing a steep mountain, overtake other tired wanderers, and pause, and then silently go on again, knowing that they all hope to see the same glorious sunset high up above. Their countenances reflect a soft moonlight; when they speak, one thinks of the whispering of the leaves of a beech forest after a warm spring shower, and as the rays of the sun light up the drops of dew with a thousand colours, and drink them up from the green grass, a heavenly light seems to shine through the tears of the mourners, to lighten them, and lovingly kiss them away. Almost every one, sooner or later, enters this brotherhood, and those who enter it early may be considered fortunate, for they learn, before it is too late, that _all_ which man calls his own is only lent him for a short time, and the ivy of their affections does not cling so deeply and so strongly to the old walls of earthly happiness.
One ought to seek out virtue for its own sake, without being influenced by fear or hope, or by any external influence. Moreover, that in _that_ does happiness consist.
Guilt, though it may attain temporal splendour, can never confer real happiness.
I speak an open and disinterested language, dictated by no passion but that of humanity. To me, who have not only refused offers, because I thought them improper, but have declined rewards I might with reputation have accepted, it is no wonder that meanness and imposition appear disgustful. Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
Unfortunately, it is much easier to shut one's eyes to good than to evil. Pain and sorrow knock at our doors more loudly than pleasure and happiness; and the prints of their heavy footsteps are less easily effaced.
Our instinct suggests that we must seek our happiness outside ourselves; our passions hurry us abroad, even when there are no objects to excite them. The objects outside us tempt and call us, even when we do not think of them. And thus it is in vain for philosophers to say, "Enter into yourselves, and you will find your good there;" we believe them not, and those who believe them are the most empty and the most foolish.
Le bonheur de l'homme en cette vie ne consiste pas a etre sans passions, il consiste a en etre le maitre=--The happiness of man in this life does not consist in being devoid of passions, but in mastering them.
Nothing that happens in the world happens by chance. God is a God of order. Everything is arranged upon definite principles, and never at random. The world, even the religious world, is governed by law. Character is governed by law. Happiness is governed by law. The Christian experiences are governed by law. Pax Vobiscum, p. 17.
That all who are happy are equally happy is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally _satisfied_, but not equally _happy_. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A peasant has not capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher.--_Johnson._
Your good nature will bring you unbounded happiness.
I believe in a very deep way that our past is what brings us to our future. When I pray for someone, I thank God for every day of their life, for every moment, for every heartbreak and each moment of happiness that has brought them to be this person at this time. I believe in mining through the darkest seasons in our lives and choosing to believe that we’ll find something important every time.
What a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has or how others regard him.
What makes people discontented with their condition is the chimerical idea they conceive of the happiness of others.
No society can be upheld in happiness and honour without the sentiment of religion.
";Happiness equals reality minus expectations."
Whatever our wanderings, our happiness will always be found within a narrow compass, and amidst the objects more immediately within our reach.
Ach! aus dem Gluck entwickelt sich Schmerz=--Alas! that from happiness there so often springs pain.
Many deceive themselves, imagining to find happiness in change.
Imagination is the disposer of all things, it creates beauty, justice and happiness, and these are the world's all. I should much like to see an Italian work, of which I know the title only, but such a title is worth many books: _Della opinione Regina del mondo_. I accept the book without knowing it, save the evil in it, if there be any.
The greatest happiness of the greatest number.
Half the world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of happiness. They think it consists in having and getting, and in being served by others. It consists in giving, and in serving others. He that would be great among you, said Christ, let him serve. He that would be happy, let him remember that there is but one way--it is more blessed, it is more happy, to give than to receive. The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 30.
The only happiness a brave man ever troubled himself with asking much about was, happiness enough to get his work done.
The ordinary man places life's happiness in things external to him; his centre of gravity is not in himself.
Philosophy can add to our happiness in no other manner but by diminishing our misery; it should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of.
When any man finds himself disposed to complain with how little care he is regarded, let him reflect how little he contributes to the happiness of others.
He who, in opposition to his own happiness, delighteth in the accumulation of riches, carrieth burdens for others and is the vehicle of trouble.
Unless the habit leads to happiness, the best habit is to contract none.--_Zimmerman._
Yes: but is not the power of being pleased with diversion in itself a happiness? No; for that comes from elsewhere and from without, so it is dependent, and therefore liable to be troubled by a thousand accidents, which make afflictions inevitable.
Est demum vera felicitas, felicitate dignum videri=--True happiness consists in being considered deserving of it.
There is, properly speaking, no misfortune in the world. Happiness and misfortune stand in continual balance. Every misfortune is, as it were, the obstruction of a stream, which, after overcoming this obstruction, but bursts forth with the greater force.
Said Scopas of Thessaly, "We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things."
Fireside happiness, to hours of ease Blest with that charm, the certainty to please.
And there is even a happiness That makes the heart afraid.
It is the possession of a great heart or a great head, and not the mere fame of it, which is of worth and conducive to happiness.
The question is whether there is, or whether there is not, hidden in every one of the sacred books, something that could lift up the human heart from this earth to a higher world, something that could make man feel the omnipresence of a higher Power, something that could make him shrink from evil and incline to good, something to sustain him in the short journey through life, with its bright moments of happiness, and its long hours of terrible distress.
He who overcomes his egoism rids himself of the most stubborn obstacle that blocks the way to all true greatness and all true happiness.
What can we call ours if God did not vouchsafe it to us from day to day? Yet it is so difficult to give oneself up entirely to Him, to trust everything to His Love and Wisdom. I thought I could say, 'Thy Will be done,' but I found I could not: my own will struggled against His Will. I prayed as we ought not to pray, and yet He heard me. It is so difficult not to grow very fond of this life and all its happiness, but the more we love it, the more we suffer, for we know we must lose it and it must all pass away.
The secret of happiness is never to allow your energies to stagnate.
I believe that Christ's yoke is easy. Christ's "yoke" is just His way of taking life. And I believe it is an easier way than any other. I believe it is a happier way than any other. The most obvious lesson in Christ's teaching is that there is no happiness in having and getting anything, but only in giving. The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 29.
If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves him.
An act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness. No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it.
This may not be the best of all possible worlds, but to say that it is the worst is mere petulant nonsense. A worn-out voluptuary may find nothing good under the sun, or a vain and inexperienced youth, who cannot get the moon he cries for, may vent his irritation in pessimistic moanings; but there can be no doubt in the mind of any reasonable person that mankind could, would, and in fact do, get on fairly well with vastly less happiness and far more misery than find their way into the lives of nine people out of ten. If each and all of us had been visited by an attack of neuralgia, or of extreme mental depression, for one hour in every twenty-four--a supposition which many tolerably vigorous people know, to their cost, is not extravagant--the burden of life would have been immensely increased without much practical hindrance to its general course. Men with any manhood in them find life quite worth living under worse conditions than these.
The most sorrowful occurrence often, through the hand of Providence, takes the most favourable turn for our happiness; the succession of fortune and misfortune in life is intertwined like sleep and waking, neither without the other, and one for the sake of the other.
They waited, ready, for all those who would call themselves mortals, So that they might praise, as I do, life, that is, happiness.
If in an aristocracy the people be virtuous, they will enjoy very nearly the same happiness as in a popular government, and the state will become powerful.--_Montesquieu._
"I fly from pleasure," said the prince, "because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others."
Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.
Whence comes it that a man who within a few months has lost his only son, or who this morning was overwhelmed with law suits and wrangling, now thinks of them no more? Be not surprised; he is altogether taken up with looking out for the boar which his hounds have been hunting so hotly for the last six hours. He needs no more. However full of sadness a man may be, he is happy for the time, if you can only get him to enter into some diversion. And however happy a man may be, he will soon become dispirited and miserable if he be not diverted and occupied by some passion or pursuit which hinders his being overcome by weariness. Without diversion no joy, with diversion no sadness. And this forms the happiness of persons in high position, that they have a number of people to divert them, and that they have the power to keep themselves in this state.
Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while
No religion ever appeared in the world whose natural tendency was so much directed to promote the peace and happiness of mankind. It makes right reason a law in every possible definition of the word. And therefore, even supposing it to have been purely a human invention, it had been the most amiable and the most useful invention that was ever imposed on mankind for their good.--_Lord Bolingbroke._
"Look neither for truth," she says, "nor consolation from men. I am she who framed you, and who alone can teach you what you are. But you are not now in the state in which I framed you. I created man holy, innocent, perfect; I filled him with light and intelligence; I communicated to him my glory and my wondrous acts. The eye of man beheld then the majesty of God; he was not then in the darkness which blinds him, nor subject to death and the miseries which afflict him. But he could not bear so great a glory without falling into pride. He would make himself his own centre, and independent of my aid. He withdrew himself from my rule; and when he made himself equal to me by the desire of finding his happiness in himself, I gave him over to self. Then setting in revolt the creatures that were subject to him, I made them his enemies; so that man is now become like the beasts, and removed from me until there scarce remains to him a confused ray of his Creator, so far has all his knowledge become extinguished or disturbed. His senses, never the servants, and often the masters of reason, have carried him astray in pursuit of pleasure. All creatures either torment or tempt him; and have dominion over him, either as they subdue him by their strength, or as they melt him by their charms, a tyranny more terrible and more imperious.
I thought a long time about my happiness, and my unworthiness, and God's unbounded mercy. And then I heard the words within me: 'Be not afraid.' Yes, there must be no fear. Where there is fear there is no perfect love. Our happiness here is but a foretaste of our blessed life hereafter. We must never forget that. We shall be called away, but we shall meet again.