“There is a common emotion we all recognize and have not yet named—the happy anticipation of being able to feel contempt.”

“It is a melancholy truth; yet such is the blessed effect of civilization! the most respectable women are the most oppressed; and, unless they have understandings far superiour to the common run of understandings, taking in both sexes, they must, from being treated like contemptible beings, become contemptible.”

“If happiness is anticipation with certainty, we were happy.”

“We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.”

“Sometimes I am happy and sometimes not. I am, after all, a human being, you know. And I am glad that we are sometimes happy and sometimes not. You get your wisdom working by having different emotions.”

“We call “happiness” a certain set of circumstances that makes joy possible. But we call joy that state of mind and emotions that needs nothing to feel happy.”

“We are creatures, not only of the mind, but of feelings and emotions as well. Indeed, feelings and emotions are more fundamental to our being than pure logic and reasoning.”

“We frequently pass so near to happiness without seeing, without regarding it, or if we do see and regard it, yet without recognizing it.”

“But happiness is being able to hope, however faintly, for happiness. So, at least, we must believe if we are to live in the world of today.”

“I needed to be made to feel that there was real, permanent happiness in tranquil contemplation. Wordsworth taught me this, not only without turning away from, but with a greatly increased interest in the common feelings and common destiny of human beings.”