“We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one.”

—  Voltaire

Nous cherchons tous le bonheur, mais sans savoir où, comme les ivrognes qui cherchent leur maison, sachant confusément qu'ils en ont une.
Notebooks (c.1735-c.1750)
A variation on this remark can be found in the same notebook: Men who look for happiness are like drunkards who cannot find their house but know that they have one [Les hommes qui cherchent le bonheur sont comme des ivrognes qui ne peuvent trouver leur maison, mais qui savent qu'ils en ont une].
Citas

Original

Nous cherchons tous le bonheur, mais sans savoir où, comme les ivrognes qui cherchent leur maison, sachant confusément qu'ils en ont une.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly…" by Voltaire?
Voltaire photo
Voltaire 167
French writer, historian, and philosopher 1694–1778

Related quotes

Julio Cortázar photo

“We went around without looking for each other, but knowing we went around to find each other.”

Julio Cortázar book Hopscotch

Source: Rayuela (Hopscotch) (1963), Chapter 1.

John Banville photo

“If you look at practically anyone - I mean, I find this more and more - the more you look at people the more you find that they've actually manufactured themselves. People whose names that you know. I meet lots of people in my ordinary life, away from writing, who seem to be authentic, who seem to know where they've come from and who they are, but anyone that I deal with in, if you like, my profession, we all seem to have made ourselves. I think artists are all self-made.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

Oblique dreamer (2000)

“A smart man isn't necessarily one who knows all the answers, but knows where to find them.”

Kenny Rogers

Television Show "Kenny Rogers - Going Home"

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Václav Havel photo

“We are finding out that what looked like a neglected house a year ago is in fact a ruin.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

Statement about the conditions in Czechoslovakia and other previously Soviet Bloc countries. Daily Telegraph London (3 January 1991)

“Success on that scale don't make for happiness. Look at Asquith. Why does he drink? I wouldn't want you to end up a drunkard like that.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 1: Robert

George Harrison photo

“Without going out of your door,
You can know all things on earth.
Without looking out of your window you could know the ways of heaven.
The farther one travels. the less one knows, the less one really knows.”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles

The Inner Light (song) (1968), On Transcendental Meditation and teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Lyrics

Thornton Wilder photo

“Like all the rich he could not bring himself to believe that the poor (look at their houses, look at their clothes!) could really suffer. Like all the cultivated he believed that only the widely read could be said to know that they were unhappy.”

Thornton Wilder book The Bridge of San Luis Rey

The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927)

Ronald Reagan photo

“We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

The third and fourth sentences are a paraphrase of a sentence by G. K. Chesterton: "I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act." Generally Speaking, "On Holland' (1928).
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), First Inaugural address (1981)
Context: It is time for us to realize that we're too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We're not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our determination, our courage, and our strength. And let us renew our faith and our hope. We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look.

Related topics