“No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise.”
Source: Villette (1853), Ch. XXII: The Letter
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Charlotte Brontë 83
English novelist and poet 1816–1855Related quotes
“A happy soul, that all the way
To heaven hath a summer’s day.”
In Praise of Lessius’s Rule of Health, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“This is the Imus in the Morning program, We're not happy 'till you're not happy.”
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“She is happy where she lies
With the dust upon her eyes.”
Source: The Selected Poetry
An Address on Abraham Lincoln before the Republican Club of New York City (12 February 1909)
“But does not happiness come from the soul within?”
Le bonheur ne vient-il donc pas de l'âme?
The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831), Part I: The Talisman
"A Liberal Decalogue" http://www.panarchy.org/russell/decalogue.1951.html, from "The Best Answer to Fanaticism: Liberalism", New York Times Magazine (16/December/1951); later printed in The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1969), vol. 3: 1944-1967, pp. 71-2
1950s
Context: The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:
1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.