“Thus King Dolor's reign passed, year after year, long and prosperous. Whether he was happy — "as happy as a king" — is a question no human being can decide. But I think he was, because he had the power of making everybody about him happy, and did it too;”

“Can any man say with certainty that he was happy at a particular moment of time which he remembers as being delightful? Remembering it certainly makes him happy, because he realizes how happy he could have been, but at the actual moment when the alleged happiness was occurring, did he really feel happy? He was like a man owning a piece of ground in which, unknown to himself, a treasure lay buried.”

“If happy I and wretched he,
Perhaps the king would change with me.”

“What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now think it was happy. But I think it is true, and thus the question of whether it is sad or happy has no meaning whatever.”

“If you want to make an ordinary man happy, or think that he is happy, give him money, power, flattery, gifts, honours. If you want to make a wise man happy - improve yourself!”

“These happy golden years are passing by, these happy golden years.”

“When he's happy, it makes you happy too.”

“I wear the cap and he the crown;—
What of that?
I sleep on straw and he on down;—
What of that?
And he's the king and I'm the clown;—
What of that?
If happy I, — and wretched he, —
Perhaps the king would change with me!”

“Vronsky, meanwhile, in spite of the complete realization of what he had so long desired, was not perfectly happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desires gave him no more than a grain of sand out of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the mistake men make in picturing to themselves happiness as the realization of their desires. For a time after joining his life to hers, and putting on civilian dress, he had felt all the delight of freedom in general, of which he had known nothing before, and of freedom in his love — and he was content, but not for long. He was soon aware that there was springing up in his heart a desire for desires — longing. Without conscious intention he began to clutch at every passing caprice, taking it for a desire and an object.”

“The King had every privilege except that of being at ease. Pompadour provided the atmosphere in which that final luxury was possible. She did not do this, as anyone who thinks about the matter for twenty seconds will know, by twenty years of rapt contemplation of the ceilings of Versailles. Indeed, Pompadour was not a physically ardent woman, and love-making tired her. After about eight years of their association Louis XV did not sleep with her… But it was to Pompadour that he talked, and it was to Pompadour that he listened.”