“Man does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does that”

“No man is happy who does not think himself so.”

“The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.”

“A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.”

“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?”

“But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.”

“How much does a man live, after all?/ Does he live a thousand days, or one only?
For a week, or for several centuries?/ How long does a man spend dying?/ What does it mean to say 'for ever'?”

“And therein lies the whole of man's plight. Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.”

“What looks like a man is only a representation of a man who does what the organization requires. He (or it) does not run the machine; he tends it.”

“One swallow does not make a summer,
neither does one fine day;
similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.”