„There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.“

„By many a happy accident.“

—  Thomas Middleton English playwright and poet 1580 - 1627

No Wit, no Help, like a Woman's (1611), Act ii. Sc. 2. Compare: "A happy accident", Madame de Staël, L'Allemagne, chap. xvi. Cervantes, Don Quixote, book iv. part ii. chap. lvii.

„I think it a very happy accident.“

—  Miguel de Cervantes Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright 1547 - 1616

Źródło: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 58.

„Happiness is an accident of nature, a beautiful and flawless aberration.“

—  Pat Conroy, The Lords of Discipline

Źródło: The Lords of Discipline

„No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.“

—  Mary Wollstonecraft, książka A Vindication of the Rights of Men

A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)

„No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.“

—  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer 1797 - 1851

Wariant: No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

„To what happy accident is it that we owe so unexpected a visit?“

—  Oliver Goldsmith, książka The Vicar of Wakefield

Źródło: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 19.

„To find accidently a handwritten letter of some old friend in a trunk. Ah, is this not happiness?“

—  Jin Shengtan Chinese writer 1610 - 1661

"Thirty-three Happy Moments"

„The basic mistake people make is to think that happiness is the goal!“

—  François Lelord, książka Hector and the Search for Happiness

Źródło: Hector and the Search for Happiness

„Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes“

—  John Ronald Reuel Tolkien British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works 1892 - 1973

Letter to Michael Tolkien (March 1941)
Kontekst: Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to.

„Evolution is all about processes that almost never happen. Every birth in every lineage is a potential speciation event, but speciation almost never happens, not once in a million births. Mutation in DNA almost never happens — not once in a trillion copings — but evolution depends on it. Take the set of infrequent accidents — things that almost never happen — and sort them into the happy accidents, the neutral accidents, and the fatal accidents; amplify the effects of the happy accidents — which happens automatically when you have replication and competition — and you get evolution.“

—  Daniel Dennett, książka Odczarowanie

Breaking the Spell (2006)

„.. I believe it is a big mistake to think that money is the only way to compensate a person for his work. People need money, but they also want to be happy in their work and proud of it.“

—  Akio Morita Japanese businessman 1921 - 1999

Źródło: Made in Japan (1986), p. 186.

„A technique succeeds in mathematical physics, not by a clever trick, or a happy accident, but because it expresses some aspect of a physical truth.“

—  Graham Sutton Welsh scientist 1903 - 1977

Mathematics in Action (1954) page 3

„Justice is the only worship.
Love is the only priest.
Ignorance is the only slavery.
Happiness is the only good.
The time to be happy is now,
The place to be happy is here,
The way to be happy is to make others so.
Wisdom is the science of happiness.“

—  Robert G. Ingersoll Union United States Army officer 1833 - 1899

„Life is messy. Would that every puzzle piece fell into place, every word was kind, every accident happy, but such is not the case. Life is messy“

—  Christopher Moore American writer of comic fantasy 1957

Źródło: The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror

„Happy endings are bullshit. There are only happy pauses.“

—  Brian K. Vaughan American screenwriter, comic book creator 1976

Źródło: Ex Machina, Vol. 10: Term Limits

„Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.“

—  George Orwell English author and journalist 1903 - 1950

„Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience.“

—  Albert Camus, książka A Happy Death

Seulement, il faut du temps pour être heureux. Beaucoup de temps. Le bonheur lui aussi est une longue patience.
A Happy Death (1971)

„The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.“

—  George Bernard Shaw Irish playwright 1856 - 1950

#107
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

„I wrote somewhere once that the third-rate mind was only happy when it was thinking with the majority, the second-rate mind was only happy when it was thinking with the minority, and the first-rate mind was only happy when it was thinking.“

—  A.A. Milne British author 1882 - 1956

War with Honour http://books.google.com/books?id=QmQDAAAAMAAJ&q="I+wrote+somewhere+once+that+the+third+rate+mind+was+only+happy+when+it+was+thinking+with+the+majority+the+second+rate+mind+was+only+happy+when+it+was+with+the+minority+and+a+first+rate+mind+was+only+happy+when+it+was+thinking", Macmillan War Pamphlets, Issue 2 (1940).