Quotes about happiness
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“Silence accompanies the most significant expressions of happiness and unhappiness: those in love understand one another best when silent, while the most heated and impassioned speech at a graveside touches only outsiders, but seems cold and inconsequential to the widow and children of the deceased.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Enemies (1887)

Love, Happiness, Children, Understanding

“Agnes Martin often speaks of joy; she sees it as the desired condition of all life. Who would disagree with her?… No-one who has seriously spent time before an Agnes Martin, letting its peace communicate itself, receiving its inexplicable and ineffable happiness, has ever been disappointed. The work awes, not just with its delicacy, but with its vigor, and this power and visual interest is something that has to be experienced.”

Wendy Beckett (1930–2018) British Catholic nun and presenter of documentaries for the BBC on the history of art

Sister Wendy Beckett, in her book American Masterpieces, about American painter Agnes Martin.

Life, Happiness, Peace, Disappointment

“Ah, happy world, where all things live
Creatures of one great law, indeed;
Bound by strong roots, the splendid flower,—
Swept by great seas, the drifting seed!”

Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford (1835–1921) American author

The Story of the Flower.

Happiness, World, Law, Flowers

“What, for instance, induced me, when so far distant from my country, voluntarily to devote myself to her cause? Her commerce? I neither knew nor cared any thing about it. Her funds? I was so happy as hardly to understand the meaning of the word. Her lands? I could, alas! lay claim to nothing but the graves of my parents.—What, then, was the stimulus? What was I proud of? It was the name and fame of England. Her laws, her liberties, her justice, her might; all the qualities and circumstances that had given her renown in the world, but above all her deeds in arms, her military glory.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Political Register (27 October 1804).

Happiness, World, Justice, Law

“I grew up during communism, when comics books were prohibited as capitalist decadent propaganda, western movies were censored, any book that could be in conflict with socialist ideology was prohibited and you went to jail for saying what you think. So I am allergic to any kind of censorship in the name of any ideology. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I would like to give all the ideologues a piece of advice – If you want something to be made, do it yourself. Everyone will be happy.”

Daniel Vávra (1975) Czech entrepreneur

An interview with Daniel Vavra: GamerGate and the gaming industry https://techraptor.net/content/interview-daniel-vavra (September 12, 2014)

Happiness, Books, Communication, Hell

“But there are motifs that would need three or four months' work, which could be done, as the vegetation doesn't change here. There are the olive trees and the pines that always keep their leaves. The sun is so fierce that objects seem to be silhouetted, not only in black or white, but in blue, red, brown, violet. I may be wrong, but this seems to be the very opposite of 'modeling'. How happy the gentle landscapists of Auvers would be here, and that [con, or 'bastard'? ] Guillemet.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Quote from Cezanne's letter to Camille Pissarro, from L'Estaque 2 July 1876, taken from Alex Danchev, The Letters of Paul Cézanne, 2013; as quoted in the 'Daily Beast' online, 13 Oct. 2013 https://www.thedailybeast.com/cezannes-letter-to-pissarro-picture-business-isnt-going-well 'The very opposite of 'modeling' meant roughly that Cézanne and Pissarro in their common painting-years in open air would lay down one plane or patch of color next to another in the painting, without any 'modeling' or shading between them - so that it looked as if each component part of the painting could be picked up from the canvas a little like a 'playing card from the table', as Cezanne explains here. Quotes of Paul Cezanne, 1860s - 1870s

Happiness, Tree, Change, Sun

“A love-match was the only thing for happiness, where the parties could any way afford it.”

Maria Edgeworth book Castle Rackrent

Castle Rackrent, "Continuation of the Memoirs of the Rackrent Family"; Tales and Novels, vol. 1, p. 46.

Love, Happiness, Way

“Such people who choose to depress are not mentally ill; their brain chemistry is not abnormal. It is changed from what it is when they are happy, but that change is perfectly normal for the total behavior, depressing, they are choosing…. The brain chemistry no more causes his depressing than sweating causes running. It is the choice to depress or to run that results in both.”

William Glasser (1925–2013) American psychiatrist

Source: Choice Theory (1997), p. 85

Happiness, People, Behavior, Change

“Happiness and Prosperity are now within our Reach; but to attain and preserve them must depend upon our own Wisdom and Virtue.”

George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention

Letter to William Cabell (6 May 1783)

Wisdom, Happiness, Dependency

“You said in that moment on the beach you were entirely happy.”

Martin Firrell (1963) British artist and activist

"The Question Mark Inside" (2008)

Happiness

“Here I am, because of the People of Paris [ Paris Commune ], up to my neck in politics. President of the Federation of Artists, member of the Commune committee, city council delegate and delegate for Public Education: the four most important posts in Paris. I get up, I have breakfast, and I preside and sit on committees twelve hours a day. Now my head is starting to spin. But in spite of all this worry and trying to understand unfamiliar things, I am really happy..”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

Quote from a letter to his parents (30th April 1870); as cited in 'Courbet Speaks', 'Courbet-dossier', Musée-dOrsay http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/courbet-dossier/courbet-speaks.html 1870s

Happiness, People, Education, Communication

“Every age has its happiness and troubles.”

Jeanne Calment (1875–1934) French supercentenarian who had the longest confirmed human life span in history

Source: Jeanne Calment: From Van Gogh's Time to Ours : 122 Extraordinary Years, 1998, p. 48: response to the question whether the birth of her daughter was the happiest time of her life

Happiness, Age

“A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Un homme heureux est trop content du présent pour trop se soucier de l'avenir.
From "Mes Projets d'Avenir", a French essay written at age 17 for a school exam (18 September 1896). The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein Vol. 1 (1987) Doc. 22.
1890s
Variant: A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.

Happiness, Future

“I see so many people wanting to make YouTube videos because they want to get famous - they want to make money, which is all great stuff, and YouTube is really an amazing place for that, but make YouTube videos because you enjoy making them. If you don't enjoy making them, you are not going to keep making them. You are just going to fall off at some point, and you are going to get frustrated it didn't turn out the way you wanted it to be. If you make videos that you enjoy making, then you can't lose. It doesn't matter if you don't get a lot of subscribers. I was equally happy when I had a couple of hundred subscribers - I thought that was equally fun to have some people watching them. If you make videos that you enjoy making, other people will enjoy watching them. I really, really, strongly believe in that, so if you're not enjoying making videos, then don't make videos.”

PewDiePie (1989) Swedish YouTuber and video game commentator

How To Get Started On YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVu8OWN90eY (10 August 2017) 2017, How To Get Started On YouTube

Money, Happiness, People, Way

“I believe in manicures. I believe in overdressing. I believe in primping at leisure and wearing lipstick. I believe in pink. I believe that loving is the best calorie-burner. I believe in kissing. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls… and I believe in miracles.”

Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) British actress

Unidentified ‘member’ of MySpace.com circa 2007–08, quoted in Richard Kennedy The Disgrace of MySpace (self-published [Lulu.com] 23 August 2008, ISBN 9781435760042, page 123. This passage and slight variants of it have been widely attributed to Audrey Hepburn long after her death (for example, in Glamour March 2012, page 78); but no evidence of its existence has been found during Hepburn’s lifetime, attributed to Hepburn or anyone else. It has not been found in print before 2008.
Misattributed

Love, Happiness, Girl, Kiss

“He told me I might judge of the happiness of this state by this one thing - viz. that this was the state of life which all other people envied; that kings have frequently lamented the miserable consequence of being born to great things, and wished they had been placed in the middle of the two extremes, between the mean and the great; that the wise man gave his testimony to this, as the standard of felicity, when he prayed to have neither poverty nor riches. He bade me observe it, and I should always find that the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that the middle station had the fewest disasters.”

Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) English trader, writer and journalist

Source: Robinson Crusoe (1719), Ch. 1, Start in Life.

Life, Happiness, People, Envy

“In fact, the Lokayata operated and developed as a tradition of universal criticism or negativism, without caring to evolve a durable or regular life-order, a socio-cultural order, of its own, with the result that it failed to commend itself to society at large. No wonder that a branch of the Lokayata, the Nilapata school, so called because its members dressed in blue, were responsible for inception of what may be called an inculture, a tradition of wanton living, about which it is said:…That is: ‘How can the Nilapata feel happy till rivers begins to overflow with wine, the mountains are made of meat, and the world is full of women?”

Charvaka An unorthodox school of Hindu philosophy

Harsh Narain, Myths of Composite Culture and Equality of Religions (1990) (quoting Puratanaprabandhasangraha)

Life, Women, Happiness, World

“Fame to a woman is indeed but a royal mourning in purple for happiness.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Happiness

“It's the nicest birthday I've ever had. You've made a happy man very old.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

From Who Put The 'M' In Manchester? (2004)
In Concert

Happiness, Birthday

“Your captain is your mother and father. He will tell you when to eat and when to sleep. Listen to him. Make happy. And we will all see the land we are going to.”

Mau Piailug (1932–2010) Micronesian navigator from the Carolinian island of Satawal and a teacher of traditional, non-instrument wa…

An Ocean in Mind (1987)

Happiness, Sleep

“Indians have sex more often in their brains and not where it should be. Sex is an elemental passion. It's an integral part of our life. All human relationship is based on the desire to have sex. It's human to have desire for sex and when it is not fulfilled, it comes out in *******ed forms. That is why celibacy does not work. The desire to have multiple partners is also normal. Married people commit adultery in their mind - happy married life is a façade. I have a collection of sex jokes, which I hope will be published posthumously.”

Khushwant Singh (1915–2014) Indian novelist and journalist

Khushwant Singh in Sikh Philosophy Network

Life, Happiness, People, Hope

“Let the states of equilibrium and harmony exist in perfection, and a happy order will prevail throughout heaven and earth, and all things will be nourished and flourish.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Doctrine of the Mean

Happiness, Perfection

“If you are well-to-do and can maintain your household, love your wife in your home according to good custom…Make her happy while you are alive, for she is land profitable to her lord.”

Ptahhotep Ancient Egyptian vizier

Maxim no. 21.
The Maxims of Ptahhotep (c. 2350 BC)

Love, Happiness, Home

“The "pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence didn't mean radical individualism. It meant the pursuit of virtue.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, Interview with Peter Robinson (2009)

Happiness

“"This law of the release of tension through illusory valuation gains new significance, full of infinite consequences, for the ressentiment attitude. To its very core, the mind of ressentiment man is filled with envy, the impulse to detract, malice, and secret vindictiveness. These affects have become fixed attitudes, detached from all determinate objects. Independently of his will, this man's attention will be instinctively drawn by all events which can set these affects in motion. The ressentiment attitude even plays a role in the formation of perceptions, expectations, and memories. It automatically selects those aspects of experience which can justify the factual application of this pattern of feeling. Therefore such phenomena as joy, splendor, power, happiness, fortune, and strength magically attract the man of ressentiment. He cannot pass by, he has to look at them, whether he “wants” to or not. But at the same time he wants to avert his eyes, for he is tormented by the craving to possess them and knows that his desire is vain. The first result of this inner process is a characteristic falsification of the world view. Regardless of what he observes, his world has a peculiar structure of emotional stress. The more the impulse to turn away from those positive values prevails, the more he turns without transition to their negative opposites, on which he concentrates increasingly. He has an urge to scold, to depreciate, to belittle whatever he can. Thus he involuntarily “slanders” life and the world in order to justify his inner pattern of value experience.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Life, Happiness, Secret, World

“He who has not spent hours, days, or years with someone he loves cannot know what happiness is, for he is unable to imagine a protracted miracle like this - one which makes out of ordinary sights and events the most enchanted existence.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Happiness

Love, Happiness, Imagination

“Many in my family were ambivalent about it, but my mother encouraged me to put aside my fears. Vera (my wife) and I finally decided to leave Utah, where we were very happy, take a 40 per cent salary cut and move to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge.”

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (1952) Nobel prize winning American and British structural biologist

About his moving to Cambridge from Utah
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

Happiness, Fear, Family

“If I'm the only one pushing Linux gaming, we have a serious problem. I'm happy for the contributions I've made, but I would be happier to know that Linux gaming can continue if I get hit by a bus. There are others out there doing what I do. You should interview them too.”

Ryan C. Gordon (1978) Computer programmer

Quoted in Luboš Doležel, "Interview: Ryan C. Gordon" http://www.abclinuxu.cz/clanky/rozhovor-ryan-c.-gordon-icculus?page=1 AbcLinuxu.cz (2011-03-08)

Happiness, Game, Problem

“Well, I'd rather be unhappy than have the sort of false, lying happiness you were having here.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

John, in Ch. 12
Brave New World (1932)

Happiness, Lying, Falseness

“The powers, and faculties, and principles that are necessary fully to comprehend all that we see and all that surrounds us, exist and have been bestowed on man by his beneficent Creator. Still, it is only by slow degrees that he is to become their master, acquiring knowledge, step by step, as he has need of its services, and learns how to use it. Such seems to be the design of Providence, which is gradually opening to our inquiries the arcana of nature, in order that we may convert their possession into such uses as will advance its own wise intentions. Happy are they who feel this truth in their character of individuals! Thrice happy the nations which can be made to understand, that the surest progress is that which is made on the clearest principles, and with the greatest caution! The notion of setting up anything new in morals, is as fallacious in theory as it will be found to be dangerous in practice.”

James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American author

Source: Oak Openings or The bee-hunter (1848), Ch. XXI

Happiness, Truth, Feeling, Understanding

“I have little interest in cricket. People are crazy about cricket and we feel happy when our country wins. The names of Hanif Mohammad, Imran Khan, Shoaib Akhtar all come to my mind once I think about cricket. These are legends of Pakistani cricket.”

Rana Bhagwandas (1942–2015) Pakistani judge

http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/14inter1.htm 2

Happiness, People, Feeling, Thinking

“I saw us as coming from a source self, free of space and time, into this reality. The focus personality (or the self we know) focuses in this life, but is also composed of of other Aspects or parts of the source self that are latent within the psyche, though "alive" in other realities. These form the basic structure of the psyche from which the focus personality emerges. I call these "prime Aspects." A harmonious working relationship between these prime Aspects results in a well-balanced focus personality -- one that is reasonably happy, healthy, and creative.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book (1976), p. 197

Life, Happiness, Reality, Time

“I held that Love
Which chooseth from a thousand only one,
To be the object of that tenderness
Natural to every heart; which can resign
Its own best happiness for one dear sake;
Can bear with absence; hath no part in Hope,—
For Hope is somewhat selfish, Love is not,—
And doth prefer another to itself.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

A History of the Lyre
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Love, Happiness, Hope, Nature

“Well, it’s not like this is anything we are trying to hide. About three times in our 21-year history we have thought it was a good idea — and still do — to defend some very good activists who have done some decent things for animals and who have happened to get into trouble. One of those people is Rodney Coronado, who is a very committed Native American animal rights activist and a decent person. He did something [firebombed a research facility at Michigan State University] that put him in prison for three-and-a-half years and I think that if we hadn’t provided him with a good legal defence he wouldn’t be back out doing productive things in the community again — like the good person that he is. We are very happy to have done that.”

Ingrid Newkirk (1949) British-American activist

Montreal Mirror http://web.archive.org/20020703023107/www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2002/032102/news3.html. On animal research and activism against it

Happiness, People, History, Communication

“If there is one quality that I find is more essential to a successful and happy life than any other, it is empathy. It is at the core of family stability and love. I’ve never had a couple come to me and say, “I want a divorce; my partner understands me.””

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 30.

Love, Life, Happiness, Family

“It is not events and the things one sees and enjoys that produce happiness, but a state of mind which can endow events with its own quality, and we must hope for the duration of this state rather than the recurrence of pleasurable events. Is this state actually an interior one, and can we recognize it otherwise than the by the changes it produces in all exterior things? If we exclude sensation and memory from our thoughts, there is nothing left but a wordless emptiness. Where can pure ecstasy and pure happiness be found? As certain phosphorescent fish see the deep water, the seaweed, and the other creatures of the sea light up at their approach but never perceive the movable source of this illumination because it is in themselves, so the happy man, though he is aware of his effect upon others, has difficulty in perceiving his happiness and even greater difficulty in predicting it.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Happiness

Happiness, Pleasure, Hope, Fish

“To act with common sense, according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know; and the best philosophy, to do one's duties, take the world as it comes, submit respectfully to one's lot, bless the goodness that has given us so much happiness with it, whatever it is, and despise affectation.”

Horace Walpole (1717–1797) English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician

Letter to Sir Horace Mann (27 May 1776)

Wisdom, Happiness, World, Sense

“O Paradise! O Paradise!
Who doth not crave for rest?
Who would not seek the happy land
Where they that love are blest?”

Frederick William Faber (1814–1863) British hymn writer and theologian

Paradise.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Love, Happiness

“Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower
Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour
Have passed away; less happy than the one
That by the unwilling ploughshare died to prove
The tender charm of poetry and love.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Poems Composed or Suggested During a Tour in the Summer of 1833, "There!" said a Stripling, l. 10 (1833).

Love, Happiness, Flowers, Nature

“Who are the real racists? So far, thanks to a Republican Party that is ignorant of its own history and gave up on the black community, Democrats have fifty of those two hundred years under their belt. The problem with today's Republican Party is that it has forgotten its own history and raison d'etre. Individual liberty. The party must come to realize that GOP also stands for 'Growth, Opportunity, Prosperity' and articulate how it stands, as its history and founding clearly demonstrate, for the individual pursuit of happiness as opposed to the progressive socialist Democrat lie of a collective guarantee of happiness. So, happy 160th birthday to my party, the Republican Party. I am a strong conservative and I hope Republicans recommit to those fundamental principles which established this party, the historical antithesis of the Democrats.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, Voting Democratic for the next 200 years (2014)

Happiness, Lie, Hope, History

“It wasn’t really a chat show, it was a magazine show. I looked at it as a summer job. As long as no one makes me interview a celeb again, I’ll be happy. It wasn’t what I signed up for but, of course, nowadays everyone likes celebs. I’m pretty bored of them, though. I wasn’t interested and couldn’t be bothered to pretend I was.”

Nigella Lawson (1960) British food writer, journalist and broadcaster

60 Seconds: Nigella Lawson (2006)

Happiness, Summer

“At any given moment the choice to be happy is present — we just have to choose to be happy.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 19

Happiness

“You of course appreciate that this industry of ours the automotive industry is today the greatest in the world. Three or four years ago it passed, in volume, steel and steel products, the next largest industry. This means, expressed otherwise, that upon its prosperity depends the prosperity of many millions of our citizens and the degree to which it has become stabilized in turn has a tremendous influence on the stabilization of industry as a whole, and therefore on the prosperity and happiness of still many more of our citizens. Directly and indirectly, this industry distributes hundreds of millions of dollars annually to those who are connected with it, in one way or another, as workers. It also distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in the aggregate to those who have invested in its securities. The purchasing power of this total aggregation, as you must appreciate, is tremendous.
I believe that if you questioned many of your readers as to the present position of the automotive industry, they would tell you that it is growing by leaps and bounds. I believe further you would sense uncertainty as to what is going to happen in the industry when the so-called state of saturation is reached. I do not know whether you appreciate it or not, but the industry has not grown very much during the past three or four years. It is practically stabilized at the present time.”

Alfred P. Sloan (1875–1966) American businessman

Source: Alfred P. Sloan in The Turning Wheel, 1934, p. 331-2: Speech by President Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., delivered to representatives of the automotive press at the Proving Ground on September 28, 1927.

Happiness, World, Way, Question

“I don't get this fashion for happy funerals. He said he wanted all his mates to be in a good mood and smile, and this is a very fashionable idea, that when you die, it's supposed to be a celebration and joyous and everyone laughing, but I want people's lives torn apart when I go. I want to be embalmed and brought out when we have guests.”

Jeremy Hardy (1961–2019) British comedian

The News Quiz, BBC Radio 4, October 1998 (rebroadcast on BBC 7, 13 June 2006)

Happiness, People, Smile, Idea

“I find that a paradigm shift takes place in two ways. First, for all scientists to start working on the new paradigm like happened with Newtonian physics, it takes a long time. But there is another way where a group of people hang onto a model that they are all happy with and they are all finding new problems to work on within that model. For me that model has been that consciousness is the ground of being and now, lots of people are accepting that model. This is a great achievement. This change has happened in less than three generations. That's a tremendous achievement. Old paradigmers, like some of my colleagues from the U of O physics department, will take a long time to change.”

Amit Goswami (1936) American physicist

Interview at NewConnexion (September 2002).

Happiness, People, Way, Problem

“Happy is he that hidden causes knowes.”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Georgicks

Happiness

“The will to power is the will to ecstasy is the will to surrender is the will to submit and, in extremis, to die. Or to put it another way, the rage to attain a freedom and happiness one's psyche cannot accept creates enormous anxiety and ends in self-punishing despair.”

Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist

Review of Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2003/03/25/willis/index.html, Salon (25 March 2003)

Happiness, Way, Freedom, Rage

“Crime is increasing
Trigger happy policing
Panic is spreading
God know where we're heading
Oh, make me wanna holler
They don't understand.”

Marvin Gaye (1939–1984) American singer-songwriter and musician

Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler).
Song lyrics, What's Going On (1971)

God, Happiness, Understanding

“The happiest man is the one who knows how to obtain the greatest sum of happiness without ever failing in the discharge of his duties, and the most unhappy is the man who has adopted a profession in which he finds himself constantly under the sad necessity of foreseeing the future.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

"History of My Life" Chapter 17
Referenced

Happiness, Sadness, Future

“You could try and breed territoriality out of the bone, but like a bad fairy it popped up again and again in all sorts of guises and from all kinds of DNA. As long as there was plenty, then everyone was happy to pay culture its due, but as soon as there was trouble—bang, out came the demonization memes and, lo and behold, they were back to the Dark Ages faster than you could say “mattock.””

Justina Robson book Natural History

Source: Natural History (2003), Chapter 8 “Briefing” (p. 101)

Happiness, Age

“Seven years ago we all went through the flames. And the happiness of some of us since then is, we think, well worth the pain we endured.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Jonathan Harker
Dracula (1897)

Pain, Happiness, Thinking

“The only current happiness is indifference, the only current feelings are the very small ones, the only current thoughts are smaller still. The only beautiful things are small feelings. Commons sense is never beautiful. People can never understand that the only thing which makes the small dogs' position at all bearable is that the big dogs' reason can analyse it.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 258

Happiness, People, Beauty, Dogs

“I stopped reading the comics page a long time ago. It seems that whoever is in charge of what to put on that page is given an edict that states: “For God’s sake, try to be as bland as possible and by no means offend any one!” Thus, whenever something like Doonesbury would come along, it would be continually censored and, if lucky, eventually banished to the editorial pages. The message was clear: Keep it simple, keep it cute, and don’t be challenging, outrageous or political.
And keep it white!
It’s odd that considering all the black ink that goes into making the comics section (and color on Sundays) that you rarely see any black faces on that page. Well, maybe it’s not so odd after all, considering the makeup of most newsrooms in our country. It is even more stunning when you consider that in many of our large cities like New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago where the white population is barely a third of the overall citizenry, the comics pages seem to be one of the last vestiges of the belief that white faces are just…well, you know…so much more happy and friendly and funny!
Of course, the real funnies are on the front pages of most papers these days. That’s where you can see a lot of black faces. The media loves to cover black people on the front page. After all, when you live in a society that will lock up 30 percent of all black men at some time in their lives and send more of them to prison than to college, chances are a fair number of those black faces will end up in the newspaper.
Oops, there I go playing the race card. You see, in America these days, we aren’t supposed to talk about race. We have been told to pretend that things have gotten better, that the old days of segregation and cross burnings are long gone, and that no one needs to talk about race again because, hey, we fixed that problem.
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, the “whites only” signs are down, but they have just been replaced by invisible ones that, if you are black, you see hanging in front of the home loan department of the local bank, across the entrance of the ritzy suburban or on the doors of the U. S. Senate”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

100 percent Caucasian and going strong!
Foreword to "The Boondocks Treasury: a Right to be Hostile" by Aaron McGruder, (2003).
2003

Love, Men, God, Happiness

“Consent in virtue knit your hearts so fast,
That still the knot, in spite of death, does last;
For as your tears, and sorrow-wounded soul,
Prove well that on your part this bond is whole,
So all we know of what they do above,
Is that they happy are, and that they love.
Let dark oblivion, and the hollow grave,
Content themselves our frailer thoughts to have;
Well-chosen love is never taught to die,
But with our nobler part invades the sky.
Then grieve no more that one so heavenly shaped
The crooked hand of trembling age escaped;
Rather, since we beheld her not decay,
But that she vanish'd so entire away,
Her wondrous beauty, and her goodness, merit
We should suppose that some propitious spirit
In that celestial form frequented here,
And is not dead, but ceases to appear.”

Edmund Waller (1606–1687) English poet and politician

Upon the Death of My Lady Rich (1664).
Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham (1857)

Love, Death, Happiness, Age

“I don't think you understand what the word cool means…. Being cool is about not participating in traditionally enjoyable experiences and creating the illusion that happiness can be found in alternative, less enjoyable experiences. The degree to which other people around you try to emulate your alternative lifestyle and fail determines how cool you are. You're only as cool as people wish they were.”

Ze Frank (1972) American online performance artist

http://www.zefrank.com/wiki/index.php/the_show:_06-13-06
"The Show" (www.zefrank.com/theshow/)

Happiness, People, Understanding, Thinking

“Life to each individual is a scene of continued feasting in a region of plenty; and when unexpected death arrests its course, it repays with small interest the large debt which it has contracted to the common fund of animal nutrition, from whence the materials of its body have been derived. Thus the great drama of universal life is perpetually sustained; and though the individual actors undergo continual change, the same parts are filled by another and another generation; renewing the face of the earth and the bosom of the deep with endless successions of life and happiness.”

William Buckland (1784–1856) English clergyman, geologist and palaeontologist

Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural Theology (1841), p. 109

Life, Death, Happiness, Universe

“There have been highs and lows, yes. So it's been quite a journey, and I am just happy that what seems to be happening in the process is that America is hearing the voices of the women affected by lack of contraception coverage and who will benefit from this policy, that is really what is most important for me, and that is why I’ve been working on this for years honestly.”

Sandra Fluke (1981) American women's rights activist and lawyer

Andrea Mitchell Reports. March 2, 2012.
Media interviews

Women, Happiness

“It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go—let it die away—go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow—and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life. It is because so few people understand this that you find many middle-aged men and women maundering about their lost youth, at the very age when new horizons ought to be appearing and new doors opening all round them. It is much better fun to learn to swim than to go on endlessly (and hopelessly) trying to get back the feeling you had when you first went paddling as a small boy.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Mere Christianity

Book III, Chapter 6, "Christian Marriage"
Mere Christianity (1952)

Life, Death, Women, Men

“You see, when you're middle class, you have to live with the fact that history will ignore you. You have to live with the fact that history can never champion your causes and that history will never feel sorry for you. It is the price that is paid for day-to-day comfort and silence. And because of this price, all happinesses are sterile; all sadnesses go unpitied.”

Douglas Coupland (1961) Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and graphic designer

Generation X (1991)

Happiness, Sadness, Feeling, History

“… to my inexpressible happiness, she is my wife, and truly best part, without a single tinge of my defects”

Ignatius Sancho (1729–1780) British composer, writer and grocer

(from vol 2, letter 21: 11 Mar 1779, to Mr S___ ).

Happiness, Parting

“Fidel made it clear in his opening remarks that the parents were important but not nearly as important as the baby. In some pictures Fidel had a big patch of wet saliva on his uniform because he had come over early to cuddle the baby.

A very warm and charming man — I enjoyed him.

I am very proud that Canada helped facilitate this; we have long, trusted ties.... This is good news and I celebrate with the Cuban people.

It was very kind of him, he was very proud of what he was doing with their children in establishing them as strong citizens.

What a fabulous place. The people are filled with life and music and happy in spite of very difficult times. Some of them work four jobs to support their families. They are wonderful people and I think this is an opportunity for them to really evolve as they need to.”

Margaret Trudeau (1948) ex-wife of the late Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau

per 19 December 2014 article in National Post http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/margaret-trudeau-fondly-remembers-1976-trip-to-cuba-and-the-charming-dictator-who-cuddled-her-baby

Life, Happiness, Children, People

“If I'm not mistaken, in the early days of Adolf Hitler, they were very happy to line up for help there as well. I mean, the companies were like, "Hey, wait a minute. We can get, you know, we can get out of trouble here. They can help, et cetera, et cetera."”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2009-04-01
After stating, "I am not saying that Barack Obama is a fascist," Beck compares auto bailout to actions of German companies "in the early days of Adolf Hitler"
2009-04-01
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200904010036
on bailouts of General Motors, American International Group, and CitiGroup
2000s, 2009

Happiness, Waiting, Help

“Every thought, every word, and every action that adds to the positive and the wholesome is a contribution to peace. Each and every one of us is capable of making such a contribution. Let us join hands to try to create a peaceful world where we can sleep in security and wake in happiness.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech (2012)

Happiness, World, Peace, Sleep

“You can live your own life and I'll live mine
I will never try to keep you down
And even if I only see you some of the time
I'm just happy when you come around
And even if the sun don't shine
I'm warm enough when you're in these arms of mine
Just as long as we're together.”

Prince (1958–2016) American pop, songwriter, musician and actor

Just as Long as We're Together
Song lyrics, For You (1978)

Life, Happiness, Time, Sun

“"The bitterest sorrow that man can know is to aspire to do much and to achieve nothing"… so Herodotus relates that a Persian said to a Theban at a banquet (book ix., chap. xvi.). And it is true. With knowledge and desire we can embrace everything, or almost everything; with the will nothing, or almost nothing. And contemplation is not happiness — no! not if this contemplation implies impotence. And out of this collision between our knowledge and our power pity arises.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VII : Love, Suffering, Pity

Happiness, Books, Knowledge

““We’re fools!” said Harrison. “Morons! Idiots!”
“If you speak of my altruism,” said Pepe cheerfully, “I agree. But if you speak of your interest in a very pretty girl, then I point out that nobody is ever as happy as while he is making a fool of himself over a woman.”

Murray Leinster (1896–1975) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Time Tunnel (1964), Chapter 2 (p. 24).

Happiness, Fools, Girl

“I could heartily wish that you and all others concerned in this sad loss, were more taken up in minding the happy exchange that she hath made, than with your present loss. She hath exchanged earth for heaven, a wilderness for a paradise, a prison for a palace, a house made with hands for one eternal in the heavens (2 Cor 5:1-2). She hath exchanged imperfection for perfection, sighing for singing, mourning for rejoicing, prayers for praises, the society of sinful mortals for the company of God, Christ, angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect, Heb 12:22-24; an imperfect transient enjoyment of God for a more clear, full, perfect, and permanent enjoyment of God. She hath exchanged pain for ease, sickness for health, a bed of weakness for a bed of spices, a complete blessedness. She hath exchanged her brass for silver, her counters for gold, and her earthly contentments for heavenly enjoyments.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

A String of Pearls

Men, God, Pain, Happiness

“The piano is always true to me. In times of despair, happiness, and joy, its mood is always my own.”

Bradley Joseph (1965) Composer, pianist, keyboardist, arranger, producer, recording artist

Album liner - Grand Piano (Narada Anniversay Collection)

Happiness, Mood, Time, Joy

“The path was new, and there was thrown
A sweet veil over pleasure's ray;
But ignorance is happiness,
When young Hope is to show the way;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(12th January 1822) Ten Years Ago.
The London Literary Gazette, 1821-1822

Happiness, Pleasure, Hope, Way

“Old and sick, more than one hundred years
Face haggard, hair white, I'm happy to still live in the mountains
A cloth covered phantom watching the years flow by
Why envy people with clever ways of living?”

Han-shan Chinese monk and poet

Cold Mountain Transcendental Poetry

Happiness, People, Way, Mountain

“To bear adversity with meek submission to the will of God; to endure chastisement with all long-suffering and joyfulness; to appear cheerful amid surrounding gloom, hopeful amidst desponding circumstances, happy in God when there is nothing else to make us happy; he who does this has indeed made great advances in the divine life.”

John Angell James (1785–1859) British abolitionist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 565.

Life, God, Happiness, Hope

“A very eminent writer has observed, that "the conversion of the Gentile world, whether we consider the difficulties attending it, the opposition made to it, the wonderful work wrought to accomplish it, or the happy effects and consequences of it, may be considered as a more illustrious evidence of God's power, than even our Saviour's miracles of casting out devils, healing the sick, and raising the dead." Indeed, a miracle said to have been wrought without any attending circumstances to justify such an exertion of divine power, could not easily be rendered credible; and our author's argument proves no more. If it were related, that about 1700 years ago, a man was raised from the dead, without its answering any other end than that of restoring him to life, Iconfess that no degree of evidence could induce me tobelieve it; but if the moral government of God appeared in that event, and there were circumstances attending it which could not be accounted for by any human means, the fact becomes credible. When two extraordinary events are thus connected, the proof of one established the truth of the other. Our author has reasoned upon the fact as standing alone, in which case it would not be easy to disprove some of his reasoning; but the fact should be considered in a moral view - as connected with the establishment of a pure religion, and it then becomes credible. In the proof of any circumstance, we must consider every principle which tends to establish it; whereas our author, by considering the case of a man said to have been raised from the dead, simpli in a physical point of view, without any reference to a moral end, endavours to show that it cannot be rendered credible; and, from such principles, we may admit his conclusions without affecting the credibility of Christianity. The general principle on which he establishes his argument, is not the great foundation upon which the evidence of Christianity rests. He says, "Notestimony can be sufficient to establish a miracle, unless it be of such a kind, that the falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endavours to prove." Now this reasoning, at furthest, can only be admitted in those cases where the fact has nothing but testimony to establish it. But the proofs of Christianity do not rest simply upon the testimony of its first promulgators, and that of those who were affterwards the instruments of communicating it; but they rest principally upon the acknowledged and very extraordinary affects which were produced by the preaching of a few unlearned, obscure persons, who taught "Christ crucified;" and it is upon these indisuptable matters of ffact which we reason; and when the effects are totally unaccountable upon any principle which we can collect from the operation of human means, we must either admit miracles, or admit an effect without an adequate cause. Also, when the proof of any position depends upon arguments drawn from various sources, all concutring to establish its turh, to select some one circumstance, and atrempt to show that that alone is not sufficient to render the fact credible, and thence infer that it is not ture, is a conclusion not to be admitted. But it is thus that our author has endavoured to destroy the credibiliry of Christianity, the evidences of which depend upon a great variety of circumstances and facts which are indisputably true, all cooperating to confirm its truth; but an examination of these falls not whithin the plan here proposed. He rests all his arguments upon the extraordinary nature of the fact, considered alone by itself; for a common fact, with the same evidence, would immediately be admitted. I have endavoured to show, that the extraordinary nature, as much as the mosst common events are necessary to fulfill the usual dispensations of Providence, and therefore the Deity was then direted by the same motive as in a more ordinary case, that of affording us such assitance as our moral condition renders necessary. In the establishment of a pur religion, the proof of its divine origin may require some very extraordinary circumstances which may never afterwards be requisite, and accordingly we find that they have not happened. Here is therefore a perfect concistencty in the operation of the Deity, in his moral government, and not a violation of the laws of nature: Secondly, the fact is immediately connected with others which are indisputably true, and which, without the supossition of the truth of that fact, would be, at least, equally miraculous. Thus I conceive the reasoning of our author to be totally inconclusive; and the argumentss which have been employed to prove the fallacy of his conclusions, appear at the same time, fully to justify our belief in, and prove the moral certainty of, our holy religion.”

Samuel Vince (1749–1821) British mathematician, astronomer and physicist

Source: The Credibility of Christianity Vindicated, p. 27; As quoted in " Book review http://books.google.nl/books?id=52tAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA262," in The British Critic, Volume 12 (1798). F. and C. Rivington. p. 262-263

Life, God, Happiness, Truth

“We all felt happy and excited because it was Diwali. My mother had saved lot of small coins from her shopping and gave them to me to buy crackers Stuffed full with sweets and feeling that life was grand I ran towards the market. Then I saw a blind beggar. He sat in the hot sun by the edge of the unpaved road while gusts of wind raised clouds of dust and rubbish over him. ‘Andhalalya paisa dey, Bhagwan’, he kept on saying to the passers, ‘Give one paisa to this blind man, oh! Bhagwan.’ In front of him there was a rusty cigarette tin. It struck me alongside my bright happy world there was a world of misery and pain.”

Baba Amte (1914–2008) Indian freedom fighter, social worker

Baba Amte: A Vision of New India

Life, Pain, Happiness, World

“To use the established phrase, three months of uninterrupted happiness glided away—a phrase, though in frequent use, whose accuracy I greatly doubt; there being no such thing as uninterrupted happiness any how or any where.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Happiness

“By sealing our work with our blood, we may see at least the bright dawn of universal happiness.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Original French: En scellant notre ouvrage de notre sang, nous puissions voir au moins briller l'aurore de la félicité universelle.
Speech to the National Convention (5 February 1794)

Happiness, Universe

“Primarily we write the show to entertain ourselves. Sometimes I recognize a joke that reminds me of something that I would've busted up at as a kid. I'm happy when I see those kinds of jokes. Because the show is for kids more than anyone else, but most of the time we are just trying to crack ourselves up and trying not to worry about much other than that.”

Pendleton Ward (1982) American animator

Happiness, Time

“Of all the kindes of common countrey life,
Methinkes a shepheards life is most content;
His state is quiet peace, devoyd of strife;
His thoughts are pure from all impure intent,
His pleasures rate sits at an easie rent;
He beares no mallice in his harmles hart,
Malicious meaning hath in him no part.

He is not troubled with th' afflicted minde,
His cares are onely over silly sheepe;
He is not unto jealozie inclinde,
(Thrice happie man) he knowes not how to weepe;
Whilst I the treble in deepe sorrowes keepe.
I cannot keepe the meane; for why (alas)
Griefes have no meane, though I for meane doe passe.”

Richard Barnfield (1574–1627) English poet

The Shepheard's Content, or the Happines of a Harmles Life. The Affectionate Shepheard http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19902 (1594)

Life, Happiness, Pleasure, Peace

“You make your appeal in Piccadilly, London, amongst those who are wallowing in luxuries, proceeding from the labour of the people. You should have gone to the gravel-pits, and made your appeal to the wretched creatures with bits of sacks around their shoulders, and with hay-bands round their legs; you should have gone to the roadside, and made your appeal to the emaciated, half-dead things who are there cracking stones to make the roads as level as a die for the tax eaters to ride on. What an insult it is, and what an unfeeling, what a cold-blooded hypocrite must he be that can send it forth; what an insult to call upon people under the name of free British labourers; to appeal to them in behalf of Black slaves, when these free British labourers; these poor, mocked, degraded wretches, would be happy to lick the dishes and bowls, out of which the Black slaves have breakfasted, dined, or supped…Talk, indeed, of transmuting the wretched Africans into this condition! …Will not the care, will not the anxiety of a really humane Englishman be directed towards the Whites, instead of towards the Blacks, until, at any rate, the situation of the former be made to be as good as that of the latter?”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Letter to Wilberforce, Political Register (30 August 1823), quoted in G. D. H. Cole, The Life of William Cobbett (Greenwood, 1971), p. 259.

Happiness, People, Dead

“When I was playing football I never enjoyed it that much, I was never happy … if I scored two goals, I wanted a third, I always wanted more. Now it’s all over I can look back with satisfaction, but I never felt that way when I was playing.”

Gabriel Batistuta (1969) Argentine association football player

Batistuta's quiet goodbye, FIFA.com, 2006-08-13, 11 July 2005 http://fifa.com/en/news/feature/0,1451,108450,00.html,

Happiness, Way, Football

“As a Nobel Prize winner I cannot but regret that the award was never given to Mark Twain, nor to Henry James, speaking only of my own countrymen. Greater writers than these also did not receive the prize. I would have been happy — happier — today if the prize had been given to that beautiful writer Isak Dinesen.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

As quoted in The New York Times Book Review (7 November 1954)

Happiness, Beauty

“Reporter: President Jiang, do you think it’ll be good for Mr. Tung to serve another consecutive term?
Jiang: That’ll be good!
Reporter: Does Central Government support him too?
Jiang: Of course yes!
Reporter: Recently European Union has published a report saying that Beijing will affect and influence the nomocracy of Hong Kong in some ways. What's your response to that?
Jiang: Never heard before.
Reporter: It’s Chris Patten who said that.
Jiang: You the media should always remember that Seeing is believing. You should judge by yourself after you have received the news, got it? In case you say these things out of thin air for him, you may share the responsibility in some way.
Reporter: Now in such an early time, you said that you supported Mr. Tung, will that give people the impression that there is already an internal decision or imperial appointment on Mr. Tung?
Jiang: There's no such implication whatsoever. Everything should be done in accordance with Hong Kong Basic Law and the election laws.
Reporter: But…
Jiang: Replying what you've just asked me, I could have said "No comment." But you guys wouldn't be happy. So what should I do?
Reporter: Then Mr. Tung…
Jiang: I did not say that imperially appointing him to serve the next term. You asked me whether I support him or not, I support him. I can tell you explicitly.
Reporter: President Jiang…
Jiang: You all… My feeling is that you the media need to learn more. You are very familiar with the Western set of value, but after all you are too young. Do you understand what I mean? Let me tell you, I've been through hundreds of battles. I've seen a lot. Which country in the West have I not been to? Every time… You should know Mike Wallace in the US. He's way above you all. He and I talked cheerfully and humorously, which is why the media need to raise your intellectual level. Got it or not?
Reporter: President Jiang…
Jiang: I'm anxious for you all truly. You really… I… You guys are good at one thing. Wherever you go to all over the world, you always run faster than Western journalists. But the questions you keep asking - are too simple, sometimes naive. Understand or not? Got it or not?
Reporter: But could you say why you support Tung Chee-hwa?
Jiang: I'm very sorry. Today I am speaking to you as an elder, not as a journalist. I am not a journalist. But I've seen too much. I have this necessity to tell you a bit of my life experience.
Jiang: I just wanted to… Every time… In Chinese we have saying, "Make a fortune quietly." If I had said nothing, that would have been the best. But I thought I've seen all of you so enthusiastic. If I said nothing, that wouldn't be good. So, a moment ago you just insisted… In spreading the news, if your reports are inaccurate, you must be responsible. I did not say giving an imperial appointment. No such meaning. But you insisted on asking me whether I supported Mr. Tung or not. He is still the current Chief Executive. How could we not support the Chief Executive?
Reporter: But if we talk about his serving another term…
Jiang: To serve another term, you must follow the law of Hong Kong. Of course, our right to make the decision is also very important, since the Hong Kong SAR belongs to the Central Government of the People's Republic of China. When it gets to the right time, we'll let you know our decision. Understand what I say? You all. Don't provoke an uproar. Don't make it a flash-news saying that "It has already been imperially appointed" and criticize me. You all! Naive! I'm angry! I just offend you today! Your behavior like this is annoying!”

Jiang Zemin (1926) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China

As quoted in "Former president Jiang Zemin unleashes a long tirade after a Hong Kong reporter asks him if Beijing had issued an "imperial order" to support Tung Chee-hwa in his bid to seek a second term as Chief Executive" https://www.facebook.com/shanghaiist/videos/10152728897091030 (October 2014), Facebook. 2000s, Hong Kong reporters make Jiang see red

Life, Happiness, People, World

“All knowledge, not only that of the natural world, can be used for evil as well as good: and in all ages there continue to be people who think that its fruit should be forbidden. Does the future wlfare, therefore, of mankind depend of a refusal of science and a more intensive study of the Sermon on the Mount? There are others who hold the contray opinion, that more and more of science and its applications alone can bring prosperity and happiness to men. Both of these extremes views seem to me entirely wrong - though the second is the more perilous as more likely to be commonly accepted. The so-called conflict between science and religion is usually about words, too often the words of their unbalanced advocates: the reality lies somewhere in between. "Completeness and dignity", to use Tyndall's phrase, are brought to man by three main channels, first by the religiouos sentiment and its embodiment of ethical principles, secondly by the influence of what is beautiful in nature, human personality, or art, and thirdly, by the pursuit of scientific truth and its resolute use in improving human life. Some suppose that religion and beauty are incompatible: others, that the aesthetic has no relation to the scientific sense: both seem to me just as mistaken as those who hold that the scientific and the religious spirit are necessarily opposed. Co-operation is required, not conflict: for science can be used to express and apply the principles of ethics, and those principles themselves can guide the behaviour of scientific men: while the appreciation of what is good and beautiful can provide to both a vision of encouragement. Is there really then any special ethical dilemma which we scientific men, as distinct from other people, have to meet? I think not: unless it be to convince ourselves humbly that we are just like others in having moral issues to face. It is true that integrity of thought is the absolute condition of oour work, and that judgments of value must never be allowed to deflect our judgements of fact. But in this we are not unique. It is true that scientific research has opened up the possibility of unprecedented good, or unlimited harm, for manking: but the use is made of it depends in the end on the moral judgments of the whole community of men. It is totally impossible noew to reverse the process of discovery: it will certainly go on. To help to guide its use aright is not a scientific dilemma, but the honourable and compelling duty of a good citizen.”

Archibald Hill (1886–1977) English physiologist and biophysicist

The Ethical Dilemma Of Science, Hill, 1960. The Ethical Dilemma of Science and Other Writings https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=zaE1AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. Rockefeller Univ. Press, pp. 88-89

Life, Men, Happiness, People

“From the last accounts from Great Britain, it appears absolutely necessary that there should be an augmentation of the American forces, in consequence of which I suppose there will be several promotions. As I have no desire of quitting the service, I hope the Congress will take no measure that will lay me under the disagreeable necessity of doing it. I have ever found myself exceeding happy under your Excellency's command. I wish my ability to deserve was equal to my inclination to merit.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (May 1776)

Happiness, Hope, Appearance

“To fight for the right, to abhor the imperfect, the unjust, or the mean, to swerve neither to the right hand nor to the left, to care nothing for flattery or applause or odium or abuse—it is so easy to have any of them in India—never to let your enthusiasm be soured or your courage grow dim, but to remember that the Almighty has placed your hand on the greatest of His ploughs, in whose furrow the nations of the future are germinating and taking shape, to drive the blade a little forward in your time, and to feel that somewhere among these millions you have left a little justice or happiness or prosperity, a sense of manliness or moral dignity, a spring of patriotism, a dawn of intellectual enlightenment, or a stirring of duty, where it did not before exist—that is enough, that is the Englishman's justification in India. It is good enough for his watchword while he is here, for his epitaph when he is gone. I have worked for no other aim. Let India be my judge.”

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925) British politician

Speech at the Byculla Club in Bombay (16 November 1905) two days before he left India, quoted in Lord Curzon in India, Being A Selection from His Speeches as Viceroy & Governor-General of India 1898-1905 (London: Macmillan, 1906), pp. 589-590.

Happiness, Justice, Feeling, Spring

“.. because of self-preservation, selfishness and the urge for happiness love has prevailed in me, and in that way everything becomes enchanted and even an old dirty, discarded doll transforms in something that can move you. The attention I gave it [in his painting: 'Rag doll', 1975], together with the attention you give it, ensure that it is no longer doomed, not alone any more. If there is any background connected to my artwork, it is this.”

Jopie Huisman (1922–2000) Dutch painter

translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van Jopie Huisman, in het Nederlands: ..uit zelfbehoud, egoïsme en drang naar geluk heeft de liefde in mij de overhand gekregen en zo wordt alles betoverd en wordt een oude vieze, weggesmeten pop een ding dat je ontroeren kan. De aandacht die ik er aan gegeven heb [in zijn schilderij: 'Lappenpop', 1975], samen met de aandacht die u er aan geeft, zorgt ervoor dat het niet meer verdoemd is, niet meer alleen. Als er een achtergrond bij mijn werk hoort, dan is het dat wel.
p 66
Jopie Huisman', 1981

Love, Happiness, Way, Painting