
“The secret to happiness… be satisfied and be grateful.”
Source: Have a Little Faith: a True Story
“The secret to happiness… be satisfied and be grateful.”
Source: Have a Little Faith: a True Story
“A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.”
Un homme heureux est trop content du présent pour trop se soucier de l'avenir.
From "Mes Projets d'Avenir", a French essay written at age 17 for a school exam (18 September 1896). The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein Vol. 1 (1987) Doc. 22.
1890s
Variant: A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.
Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Indira Gandhi in New Delhi, February 1972
“Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?”
Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out. Vol. II, ch. 27.
Source: Vanity Fair (1847–1848)
Speech to the US Congress (13 October 1949)
Context: We have achieved political freedom but our revolution is not yet complete and is still in progress, for political freedom without the assurance of the right to live and to pursue happiness, which economic progress alone can bring, can never satisfy a people. Therefore, our immediate task is to raise the living standards of our people, to remove all that comes in the way of the economic growth of the nation. We have tackled the major problem of India, as it is today the major problem of Asia, the agrarian problem. Much that was feudal in our system of land tenure is being changed so that the fruits of cultivation should go to the tiller of the soil and that he may be secure in the possession of the land he cultivates. In a country of which agriculture is still the principal industry, this reform is essential not only for the well-being and contentment of the individual but also for the stability of society. One of the main causes of social instability in many parts of the world, more especially in Asia, is agrarian discontent due to the continuance of systems of land tenure which are completely out of place in the modem world. Another — and one which is also true of the greater part of Asia and Africa — is the low standard of living of the masses.
Attributed to John Stuart Mill in The Phrenological Journal and Science of Health, Vol. LXXXV (September 1887), p. 170
Disputed