“Happiness is pure kitsch; we come into the world to suffer and learn.”

“We have two lives, Roy, the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness.”

Bernard Malamud The Natural

“All the suffering there is in this world arises from wishing our self to be happy. All the happiness there is in this world arises from wishing others to be happy.”

Šantidéva (685–763) 8th-century Indian Buddhist monk and scholar

“…we learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Summing Up

“The pursuit of happiness is a toxic value that has long defined our culture. It is self-defeating and misleading. Living well does not mean avoiding suffering; it means suffering for the right reasons. Because if we’re going to be forced to suffer by simply existing, we might as well learn how to suffer well.”

Mark Manson book Everything Is Fucked

“Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good:
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

“The essential thing in religion is making the heart pure; the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, but only the pure in heart can see the King. While we think of the world, it is only the world for us; but let us come to it with the feeling that the world is God, and we shall have God.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

“We must learn to suffer more.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

“Meditation and worship helps to purify the mind. Looking at beauty in the world is the first step of purifying the mind. A corrupted mind can't recognize the beauty of the world. A pure mind perceives it. A pure mind is the source of happiness.”

Amit Ray (1960) Indian author

“Hark you shadows that in darkness dwell,
Learn to contemn light,
Happy, happy they that in hell
Feel not the world's despite.”

John Dowland (1563–1626) English Renaissance composer, lutenist, and singer