“There's an obligation to try every route to happiness.”

“I had forgotten that talking to you is like trying to pet a cactus." Saiman said dryly. "Thank you for reminding me."
"Always happy to oblige.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

“It would not be correct to say that every moral obligation involves a legal duty; but every legal duty is founded on a moral obligation.”

John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge (1820–1894) British lawyer, judge and Liberal politician

“How imperious, then, is the obligation imposed upon every citizen, in his own sphere of action, whether limited or extended, to exert himself in perpetuating a condition of things so singularly happy.”

Martin Van Buren (1782–1862) American politician, 8th President of the United States (in office from 1837 to 1841)

“Every pain is to be avoided, except those whose endurance will enable the avoidance of greater pain, and every possible happiness is to be harvested, save those whose foregoing will help the universe to larger happiness. There is no obligation commanding any being to endure misery save to avoid misery, and no consideration demanding any one to neglect happiness save for larger happiness—those ascetics who proclaim the divinity of wretchedness to the contrary notwithstanding.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

“It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934) Hungarian American psychologist

“I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.”

John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) American business magnate and philanthropist

“I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.”

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874–1960) American financier and philanthropist

“I suppose now I'm obliged to wish you happiness in your new life. Although happiness in the absence of indoor plumbing is a debatable concept.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

“It is not the smallest use to try to make people good, unless you try at the same time — and they feel that you are trying — to make them happy. And you rarely can make another happy, unless you are happy yourself.”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet