Alain: Thing

“Work is the best and worst of all things; the best of it is voluntary, the worst of it is servile.”

Alain

Happy Farmers
Alain On Happiness (1928)

“Humanity will have to extricate itself from the bags created by false moralists, according to whom we taste happiness and then pass judgment on it, as if it were a piece of fruit. But I maintain that even for a piece of fruit we can do something to help it taste good. This is even truer of marriage and every other human relationship; these things are not meant to be tasted or passively accepted; they must be made. A relationship is not like a bit of shade where one is comfortable or uncomfortable depending on the weather and the way the wind is blowing. On the contrary, it is a place of miracles, where the magician makes the rain and the good weather.”

Alain

On Private Life
Alain On Happiness (1928)

Marriage , Way , Help , Dependency

“When people ask me if the division between parties of the right and parties of the left, men of the right and men of the left, still makes sense, the first thing that comes to mind is that the person asking the question is certainly not a man of the left.”

Alain

Statement of 1931, as quoted by Marcel Gauchet, Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, Vol. 1 - Conflicts and Divisions, edited by Pierre Nora and Lawrence Kritzman, p. 266 ISBN 9780231084048

Men , People , Question , Sense

“In short, the important thing is to get started. No matter how; then there will be time to ask yourself where you are going.”

Alain

Fate
Alain On Happiness (1928)

Time

“It is very true that we ought to think of the happiness of others; but it is not often enough said that the best thing we can do for those who love us is to be happy ourselves.”

Alain

Happiness if Generous
Alain On Happiness (1928)

Love , Thinking , Happiness