“I have found that the key to being happy — well, one of the keys, anyway — is to be easily amused”
“I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”
Originally from Herbert Bayard Swope (1882-1958); often attributed to Cosby, he actually cites this as a sound advice he once read elsewhere, in "Dr. Bill Cosby" in Ebony, Vol. 32, No. 8 (June 1977), p. 136
Misattributed
“If you are wholly perplexed and in straits,
have patience, for patience is the key to joy.”
Rumi Daylight (1990)
“He himself must be
the key, now, to the next door,
the next terrors of freedom and joy.”
St. Peter and the Angel
Oblique Prayers (1984)
“The joy that is everywhere/ Is the true joy of being/ The joy that is life itself!”
Joy: Share it! p. 140.
Joy: Share it! (2017)
The Weight of Glory (1949)
Context: Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
A Mortal Antipathy (1885) This statement is often misquoted as "Love is the master-key that opens the gates of happiness".
