This is a paraphrase of statement in a thank you note from Carroll to a childhood friend, the actress Ellen Terry, published in Ellen Terry, Player in Her Time (1997), p. 126 https://books.google.com/books?id=2PkzZ9KaRlwC&lpg=PA126&vq=%22do%20for%20others%22&pg=PA126#v=snippet&q=%22do%20for%20others%22&f=fals by Nina Auerbach: "... and so you have found out that secret — one of the deep secrets of Life — that all, that is really worth the doing, is what we do for others?"
Disputed
“The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one's destiny to do, and then do it.”
“The secret of life is to find out what one really wants.”
Source: A Lodge in the Wilderness (1906), Ch. II, p. 43
“The secret of happiness is not doing what we like but in liking what we do.”
Source: A Mother's Advice to Her Daughter, 1728, p. 204
Source: Something Wicked This Way Comes
Source: The Shadow of the Wind
Bowdoin Academic Spotlight interview (2011)
Context: You have to take advantage of the opportunities that life gives you, particularly the moments in time when you have time, when you're between jobs or you retire. Get out and go. I think most of us are way too intense. We need to take a deep breath and do things that maybe don't fit the normal picture of what we're supposed to do at that stage of life. In some ways, this book is one big argument for just plain loosening up.
“But do we really live? To live without knowing what life is - is that living?”
Source: The Book of Disquiet
