Quotes about happiness
page 37

“Admittedly America has not fully succeeded. The absence of definition, of principles, and of methods of Americanization shows her success thus far to have been rather a happy accident, an outcome which cannot be expected in a more exacting future. Has it been regarded as a war necessity to be dealt with expeditiously and then dropped, or will it become a science, thereby progressing from emotion to reason, from impulse to logic, and from chaos to order? With the war ended, there is danger that we will turn aside to new interests, unless a foundation of science can be laid and a philosophy evolved.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

War, Happiness, Science, Success

“This mortal Don Quixote died and descended into hell, which he entered lance on rest, and freed all the condemned, as he freed the galley slaves, and he shut the gates of hell, and tore down the scroll that Dante saw there and replaced it by one on which was written "Long live hope!" and escorted by those whom he had freed, and they laughing at him, he went to heaven. And God laughed paternally at him, and this divine laughter filled his soul with eternal happiness.”

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

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), Conclusion : Don Quixote in the Contemporary European Tragi-Comedy

God, Happiness, Hope, Soul

“119. Happy is the spirit that becomes free of all matter and is stripped of all at the time of prayer.”

Evagrius Ponticus (345–399) Christian monk

Chapters on Prayer

Happiness, Time

“The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)

Happiness, Success

“To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little. To be happy with a woman you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.”

Helen Rowland (1875–1950) American journalist

Fourth Interlude http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30630/30630-h/30630-h.htm#Page_93 A Guide to Men (1922)

Love, Happiness, Understanding

“I am absolutely for the possibility of a happy relationship between adults, regardless of gender, and I think that they can not be denied the right to life worthy. I am also in favor of equal treatment of married couples and cohabiting couples. I did not marry myself. In Poland, the wedding is considered to be a sanctity, and in fact has primarily legal consequences: it guarantees the right to inheritance, to adoption, to visit the hospital in the most dramatic moments. The alcoholic's husband can go ambulance to the hospital with a battered wife, while the cohabitant with a loved and loving concubine cannot. In the Netherlands, spouses and cohabitants have similar rights.”

Tomasz Vetulani (1965) Polish artist

Tomasz Vetulani o Holandii, niskim kraju http://www.nto.pl/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110605/REPORTAZ01/762330357, nto.pl, 5 June 2011 (in Polish)

Love, Life, Happiness, Alcohol

“I know what love is. There was a happy time when I didn't, but bitter experience has taught me.”

W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) English librettist of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

Patience (1881)

Love, Happiness, Time

“After a volcano has erupted our landscape is filled with silence. A moment ago it was on fire, now the rapid ashes are warming our feet. a moment ago it was dazzlingly light, now it is blessed twilight, kind to our eyes. All is at rest. The volcano is asleep, even our poor nerves are asleep. We are not happy, but we have a momentary peace. A moment ago we have seen the desert of our life in all its appalling vastness, now we see that the desert is in flower. The oases are few are afar between, but they do exist; we know that the desert is vast, but we also know that in the biggest deserts are the most oases. To gain this knowledge we must pay dearly, and an eruption is the price; it is high; but there is no lower one. That is why we should bless the volcanoes, thank them because their glare is so strong and their first so hot. Thank them for having dazzled us, for only then do we acquired our full sight; thank them, too, for having burnt us, for only as burnt children can we warm each other.But moments of peace are short. All other moments are much longer, and to know this is also wisdom. But because they are so short we must life in those moments as thought it were only then we lived. They knew this too.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 263

Life, Wisdom, Happiness, Children

“If our age is not distinguished for a greatly increased number of happy marriages and a more intelligent approach to the problems of sex, we may surely assert that some forms of misery in the sexual realm are less widespread than they used to be; and of the many people who are unhappy, thousands have some idea of what lies at the root of their unhappiness, and thus far they are better off than their forefathers, who had none, or attributed their distress to sin.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

Marriage, Happiness, People, Age

“It is a vocation, parenting, that is not just all about yourself, because it is all about that future you will never see. It is all about that happiness you will never enjoy. It is all about that person who will grow to a maturity, offering to the world a gift, one element of which may reflect a little contribution from yourself. But long before that gift is finally delivered, you will likely have shuffled off this mortal coil, and not be there to enjoy it. [Parenting] represents the possibility, which in the end is at the heart of the perpetuation of all our human community: the possibility that we will not live for ourselves alone, but will feel a deep and true connection, with a future we will never see, with a progeny we will never meet, but who, in our hearts' imaginations, we contemplate, with a sense of responsibility and obligation. Change the understanding of marriage, and you have changed the understanding of our character in such a way as to break our bond with that future, and to undermine that sense of responsibility.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

National Federation of Republican Assemblies, NYC, August 31, 2004. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/04_08_31nfra.htm. 2009

Marriage, Happiness, World, Way

“Most blacks are happy, except those who have had other ideas pushed into their ears.”

P. W. Botha (1916–2006) South African prime minister

As cited in Dictionary of South African Quotations, Jennifer Crwys-Williams, Penguin Books 1994, p. 53

Happiness, Idea

“Making this crowd happy is the second easiest job you could ever have. First easiest… whoever gets to put Michael Jackson in a witness chair and create "reasonable doubt." How hard can that be? I don't even have a law degree and I think I could get Michael Jackson, y'know? I would just go, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury… there he is! That's all I have. Y'all get a good look at my boy? See if you think he's capable of anything out of the ordinary. There he is." But it's a tough thing to prosecute Michael Jackson, y'know? Because everyone's entitled to a jury of their peers! You could run the vacuum up and down the gene pool 24/7 without suckin' up this much of whatever that has become. He has no peers. He's peerless. So why am I pickin' on poor little mutated Michael Jackson? Because Michael Jackson is a cautionary tale for the rest of us, folks. Michael Jackson is what happens when you keep fixin' it until it's broke!”

Richard Jeni (1957–2007) American comedian

A Big, Steaming Pile Of Me

Happiness, Law, Boy, Thinking

“I saw The Sound of Music again recently, and I loved it. Probably it's a more valuable film now than when it first came out, because some of the things it stood for have already disappeared. There's a kind of naive loveliness about it, and love goes by so fast … love and music and happiness and family, that's what it's all about. I believe in these things. It would be awful not to, wouldn't it?”

Julie Andrews (1935) British actress, singer, author, theatre director, and dancer

Photoplay (September 1973)

Love, Happiness, Family, Music

“Today I got this desire, and tomorrow I will get that one; all these riches are mine, and soon I will have even more. Already I have killed these enemies, and soon I will kill the rest. I am the lord, the enjoyer, successful, happy, and strong, noble, and rich, and famous. Who on earth is my equal?”

Vyasa central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions

Sources, Veda Vyasa Maharshi

Happiness, Strong, Success

“Twenty-five years ago I couldn't walk down the street without being recognized. Now I can put a cap on, walk anywhere and no one pays me any attention. They don't ask me about my movies and they don't ask me about my salad dressing because they don't know who I am. Am I happy about this? You bet.”

Paul Newman (1925–2008) American actor and film director

Quoted in Geoff Pevere, "Getting noticed: the spooky side of celebrity," http://www.toronto.com/movies/article/525796 toronto.com (2007-08-10)

Happiness

“Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness, as you confess those invaded by the Stamp Act to be. We claim them from a higher source—from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives.”

John Dickinson (1732–1808) American politician

From An Address to the Committee of Correspondence in Barbados (1766), ‘Of the Right to Freedom: and of Traitors’, as contained in A Library of American Literature: Literature of the revolutionary period, 1765-1787, ed. Edmund Clarence Stedman, C. L. Webster (1888), p. 176

Happiness, Law, Nature

“I feel it is through prayer, meditation, and dedicated service that world peace can take place. Each individual has to try to make others happy, for it is only through happiness that we can have peace.”

Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian writer and guru

The Wings of Joy (1997)

Happiness, World, Peace, Feeling

“I shall tell you how my Guru’s Guru died. After announcing that his end was nearing, he stopped eating, without changing the routine of his daily life. On the eleventh day, at prayer time he was singing and clapping vigorously and suddenly died! Just like that, between two movements, like a blown out candle. Everybody dies as he lives. I am not afraid of death, because I am not afraid of life. I live a happy life and shall die a happy death. Misery is to be born, not to die. All depends how you look at it.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Death
Source: I am That, P.181.

Life, Death, Happiness, Change

“Each of us [the Der Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) artists] was interested in the work of the other members of our group, much as each of us was also interested in the health and happiness of the others. But we were still far from considering ourselves as a group or a school of art... I don't think we were ever as programmatic in out theories, as competitive or a self-assertive, as some of the modern [art] schools of Paris.”

Gabriele Münter (1877–1962) German painter

Source: Interview by Edouard Roditi (1958), p. 117

Happiness, Health, School, Art

“What could we call the moment before we begin to eat the honey? Some would call it anticipation, but we think it's more than that. We would call it awareness. It's when we become happy and realize it, if only for an instant. By Enjoying the Process, we can stretch that awareness out so that it's no longer a moment, but covers the whole thing. Then we can have a lot of fun. Just like Pooh.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

Bisy Backson.
The Tao of Pooh (1982)

Happiness, Thinking

“A man isn't really alive till he has something bigger than himself and his own little happiness, for which he'd gladly die.”

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) American science fiction and fantasy writer

"Ghetto" (1954)
Short fiction

Happiness

“The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

Widely quoted as an Addison maxim this is actually by the American clergyman George Washington Burnap (1802-1859), published in Burnap's The Sphere and Duties of Woman : A Course of Lectures (1848), Lecture IV.
Misattributed

Love, Life, Happiness, Hope

“To happy folk
All heaviest words no more of meaning bear
Than far-off bells saddening the Summer air.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

"The Hill of Venus".
The Earthly Paradise (1868-70)

Happiness, Summer

“The Israeli people are actually incredible. Even with world opinion beating down upon them. They’re not broken. You know, for the most part, they don’t care. You know, they need to be protected and again I’m amazed by the courage that I see in the people.
To be honest with you. I don’t think that journalists should be anywhere allowed war. I mean you guys report where our troops are at. You report what’s happening day today. You make a big deal out of it. I think its asinine. I like back in World War I and World War II when you’d go to the theatre and you’d see your troops, on a, on the screen, and everyone would be real excited and happy for them. Now everyone’s got an opinion and wants to down our, down soldiers, you know, American soldiers, Israeli soldiers; And I think media should be abolished, from ah, you know, reporting. War is hell. And if you’re going to sit there and say look at this atrocity. Well, you don’t know the full story behind it half the time. So I think the media should have no business in it.”

Joe the Plumber (1973) American conservative activist and commentator

"Joe Plumber: Media Shouldn't Report War" Associated Press report (11 January 2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJYCxj8KXjQ&feature=related.

War, Happiness, People, World

“How can we help loving best those who first gave us possession of ourselves? All the day long they were together: living as they did, they could not help being so; only parting at night for a few short hours to dream over the happy past day, and to meet again the next morning, the happier for their brief separation. It was a new life to him: what had often hung before him as a fairy vision — what he had longed for, but never found; and here, as if sent down from heaven, was what more than answered to his wildest dreams. Now for the first time he found himself loved for himself — slighted and neglected as he had been …. suddenly he was singled out by a fascinating woman, who made no secret of the pleasure his friendship gave her.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Arthur's commentary
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

Love, Life, Friendship, Happiness

“To all this, his illustrious mind reflects the noblest ornament; he places no part of his happiness in ostentation, but refers the whole of it to conscience; and seeks the reward of a virtuous action, not in the applauses of the world, but in the action itself.”
Ornat haec magnitudo animi, quae nihil ad ostentationem, omnia ad conscientiam refert recteque facti non ex populi sermone mercedem, sed ex facto petit.

Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer

Letter 22, 5.
Letters, Book I

Happiness, World, Parting

“Since God could have created a freedom in which there could be no evil (i. e., a state when men were happy and free and certain not to sin), it follows that He wished evil to exist. But evil offends Him. A commonplace case of masochism.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Men, God, Happiness, Freedom

“Every pitifulest whipster that walks within a skin has had his head filled with the notion that he is, shall be, or by all human and divine laws ought to be, 'happy.' His wishes, the pitifulest whipster's, are to be fulfilled for him; his days, the pitifulest whipster's, are to flow on in an ever-gentle current of enjoyment, impossible even for the gods. The prophets preach to us, Thou shalt be happy; thou shalt love pleasant things, and find them. The people clamor, Why have we not found pleasant things?… God's Laws are become a Greatest Happiness Principle. There is no religion; there is no God; man has lost his soul.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Bk. III, ch. 4.
1840s, Past and Present (1843)

Love, God, Happiness, People

“The golden toad was the first documented victim of global warming. We had killed it with our profligate use of coal-fired electricity and our oversize cars just as surely as if we had flattened its forest with bulldozers. It was as if, having experienced it, we did not recognize what happiness was.”

Tim Flannery book The Weather Makers

Source: The Weather Makers (2005), Chapter 12 (p. 119)

Happiness, Cars

“"Leicester," she cried, "is this thy love
That thou so oft hast sworn to me,
To leave me in this lonely grove,
Immured in shameful privity?"No more thou com'st with lover's speed,
Thy once beloved bride to see;
But be she alive, or be she dead,
I fear, stern Earl, 's the same to thee."Not so the usage I received
When happy in my father's hall;
No faithless husband then me grieved,
No chilling fears did me appall."I rose up with the cheerful morn,
No lark more blithe, no flower more gay;
And like the bird that haunts the thorn,
So merrily sung the livelong day."If that my beauty is but small,
Among court ladies all despised,
Why didst thou rend it from that hall,
Where, scornful Earl, it well was prized?"”

William Julius Mickle Cumnor Hall

Stanzas 3–7
Cumnor Hall (1784)

Love, Happiness, Fear, Beauty

“Happy in the time of Jesus were those who wept! Happy, now, are those who can laugh, because laughter is the attribute of man, as the great prophet of the Renaissance, Rabelais, said. Laughter is forbearance; laughter is philosophy. The heavens clear when they laugh, and the great secret of divine omnipotence resides in an eternal smile!”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Book Two: The Royal Mystery or the Art of Subduing the Powers, Chapter V: The Outer Darkness
The Great Secret: or Occultism Unveiled

Happiness, Secret, Smile, Laughter

“[O]ur constitutions of government have declared that all men are born free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights, among which are the right of enjoying their lives, liberties, and property, and of seeking and obtaining their own safety and happiness. May not the miserable African ask, "Am I not a man and a brother?"”

Joseph Story (1779–1845) US Supreme Court justice

In 1819, as quoted in Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction https://books.google.com/books?id=Tpb7HAIhWHgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=9780199843282&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjz1ILxqfLcAhVDnuAKHda9Ai0Q6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=9780199843282&f=false (2012), by Allen C. Guelzo, Chapter One

Men, Happiness

“All I can tell is that they [some small landscapes Bilders painted in Savoy, which were exhibited there] are more blatant than in my studio, and secondly that I have been honored with a pretty good review... the jury found evidence of a thoroughly study and of happy sunlight in my works. They thought that I had to cherish a lot of love for nature, to be able to show it so sensitive.... [I] can not deny that I am very pleased to find that my small paintings have been noticed favorably. And besides that, one will never forget his first review..”

Gerard Bilders (1838–1865) painter from the Netherlands

Bilder's travel to Switzerland with some other artists was the longest travel he ever made in his short life
Source: 1850's, Vrolijk Versterven' (from Bilders' diary & letters), p. 23 - quote in Bilder's letter to his maecenas Johannes Kneppelhout, from Savoy, near Geneva, Switserland, September 1858;

Love, Happiness, Nature, Study

“Around this time Siward, the mighty earl of Northumbria, almost a giant in stature, very strong mentally and physically, sent his son to conquer Scotland. When they came back and reported to his father that he had been killed in battle, he asked, "Did he receive his fatal wound in the front or the back of his body?" The messengers said, "In the front." Then he said, "That makes me very happy, for I consider no other death worthy for me or my son."”
Circa hoc tempus Siwardus consul fortissimus Nordhymbre, pene gigas statura, manu uero et mente predura, misit filium suum in Scotiam conquirendam. Quem cum bello cesum patri renuntiassent, ait, "Recepitne uulnus letale in anteriori uel posteriori corporis parte?" Dixerunt nuntii, "In anteriori." At ille, "Gaudeo plane, non enim alio me uel filium meum digner funere."

Henry of Huntingdon book Historia Anglorum

Circa hoc tempus Siwardus consul fortissimus Nordhymbre, pene gigas statura, manu uero et mente predura, misit filium suum in Scotiam conquirendam. Quem cum bello cesum patri renuntiassent, ait, "Recepitne uulnus letale in anteriori uel posteriori corporis parte?" Dixerunt nuntii, "In anteriori."
At ille, "Gaudeo plane, non enim alio me uel filium meum digner funere."
Book VI, §22, pp. 376-7.
Historia Anglorum (The History of the English People)

Death, Happiness, Strong, Time

“It was recognized, and recognized fairly, that when you get large bodies of workmen together they cannot, nor is it fair to expect them to, negotiate individually against the more powerful management that controls large bodies of men; and so it was that, to secure effective freedom of contract, power was given for man to join himself to man for that very purpose of bettering his position. The trade union as we know it came into being to meet the new conditions of industry. It was essential then, and for that purpose it will continue to be essential. This country is the birthplace of that kind of combination—this country, which has been the birthplace of every effort to free mankind by legitimate and evolutionary means, and will continue to be so, long after the efforts of other and less happy countries have gone down in failure and disaster.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Chippenham (12 June 1926), quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), p. 161.
1926

Men, Happiness, Failure, Effort

“There is a Polish countess here, who likes me much. She has been very handsome, still is, in the style of the full-blown rose. She is a widow, very rich, one of the emancipated women, naturally vivacious, and with talent. This woman envies me; she says, "How happy you are; so free, so serene, so attractive, so self-possessed!" I say not a word, but I do not look on myself as particularly enviable. A little money would have made me much more so; a little money would have enabled me to come here long ago, and find those that belong to me, or at least try my experiments; then my health would never have sunk, nor the best years of my life been wasted in useless friction. Had I money now, — could I only remain, take a faithful servant, and live alone, and still see those I love when it is best, that would suit me. It seems to me, very soon I shall be calmed, and begin to enjoy.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Letter (17 November 1847).
Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852)

Love, Life, Women, Money

“The idea of liberty, or the liberty which is a blessing, being an emancipation of the passions from moral restraint had no place in the constitutional doctrine of the novus ordo seclorum. The liberty which is a blessing must be good for the one who possesses it. It must therefore be a good in the sight of God, who is the source of blessings. Such a good must point to felicity, whether in this world or the next, as its consummation. By calling the advantages of liberty "blessings," the Constitution, which in certain respects makes perhaps the most radical break in all human history with all that has gone before it, nonetheless, in its understanding of the connection between happiness and virtue, aligns itself decisively with traditional moral philosophy and moral theology.”

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

2000s, The American Founding as the Best Regime (2002)

God, Happiness, World, History

“It is a war of ideologies and struggle races. On one side stands National Socialism: ideology, founded on the values of our Germanic, Nordic blood. It is worth the world as we want to see: beautiful, orderly, fair, socially, a world that may be, still suffers some flaws, but overall a happy, beautiful world filled with culture, which is precisely Germany. On the other side stands the 180 millionth people, a mixture of races and peoples, whose names are unpronounceable, and whose physical nature is such that the only thing that they can do - is to shoot without pity or mercy. These animals, which are subjected to torture and ill-treatment of each prisoner from our side, which do not have medical care they captured our wounded, as do the decent men, you will see them for yourself. These people have joined a Jewish religion, one ideology, called Bolshevism, with the task of: having now Russian, half [located] in Asia, parts of Europe, crush Germany and the world. When you, my friends, are fighting in the East, you keep that same fight against the same subhumans, against the same inferior races that once appeared under the name of Huns, and later - 1,000 years ago during the time of King Henry and Otto I, - the name of the Hungarians, and later under the name of Tatars, and then they came again under the name of Genghis Khan and the Mongols. Today they are called Russian under the political banner of Bolshevism.”

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS

Heinrich Himmler speaking in Stettin to soldiers of the SS (13 July 1941)
1940s

Men, War, Happiness, People

“Fitz-Roy's temper was a most unfortunate one. It was usually worst in the early morning, and with his eagle eye he could generally detect something amiss about the ship, and was then unsparing in his blame. He was very kind to me, but was a man very difficult to live with on the intimate terms which necessarily followed from our messing by ourselves in the same cabin. We had several quarrels; for instance, early in the voyage at Bahia, in Brazil, he defended and praised slavery, which I abominated, and told me that he had just visited a great slave-owner, who had called up many of his slaves and asked them whether they were happy, and whether they wished to be free, and all answered "No." I then asked him, perhaps with a sneer, whether he thought that the answer of slaves in the presence of their master was worth anything? This made him excessively angry, and he said that as I doubted his word we could not live any longer together. I thought that I should have been compelled to leave the ship; but as soon as the news spread, which it did quickly, as the captain sent for the first lieutenant to assuage his anger by abusing me, I was deeply gratified by receiving an invitation from all the gun-room officers to mess with them. But after a few hours Fitz-Roy showed his usual magnanimity by sending an officer to me with an apology and a request that I would continue to live with him.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

volume I, chapter II: "Autobiography", pages 60-61 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=78&itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=image The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887)

Happiness, Anger

“After being the CM for two consecutive terms, I had two desires. One was to unearth my childhood friends with whom I had completely lost touch. One day, I sat up and listed all the names I could remember. I remembered them all but had lost track of their whereabouts. Some 35 names popped up. I wanted to invite them to the Chief Minister's residence and share my childhood with them and also because I wanted to remind myself about the real Modi lest I lose sight of him. So, I spent time with my friends getting down-to-earth. They too felt that if I remembered and spent time with them after having reached where I have then I must be fine. So, that was my test. The other desire was to get together all the teachers in my lifetime and honour them. One of them was 93-years-old. I invited them here and organised a big function to honour them. It gave me immense happiness that I was able to honour and say thanks to those who have contributed their might in shaping me. So, I fulfilled both my desires and I am happy about it.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2011, Interview with C. S. S. Latha, 2011

Happiness, Teachers, Time, Childhood

“The currently (2010) widely accepted/believed description of the birth and evolution of the universe and of its contents is "Lambda Cold Dark Matter Concordance Cosmological Model" (LCDM CCM) … My own research was very much confined to the early version of the LCDM CCM (mid-1990's) when I began performing numerical experiments on the satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. I was quite happy with the CCM, as everyone else, and did not bother with the fundamental issues raised by some. With time, however, it became apparent that the LCDM CCM accounts poorly for the properties of the satellite galaxies and their distribution about the Milky Way. Warm dark matter models fared no better.”

Pavel Kroupa (1963) Australian astrophysicist

Pavel Kroupa: Dark Matter, Cosmology and Progress website, July 4, 2010 http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~pavel/kroupa_cosmology.html,

Happiness, Way, Birth, Universe

“My plea to you is this: despite your sadness, do not forget how happy you have made me; do not forget that I loved a man who loved me in return, and this was the greatest gift I could ever hope to receive.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Ruth Levinson, Chapter 28 Ira, p. 328-329
2009, The Longest Ride (2013)

Love, Happiness, Sadness, Hope

“Now there was one of these Essens, whose name was Manahem, who had this testimony, that he not only conducted his life after an excellent manner, but had the foreknowledge of future events given him by God also. This man once saw Herod when he was a child, and going to school, and saluted him as king of the Jews; but he, thinking that either he did not know him, or that he was in jest, put him in mind that he was but a private man; but Manahem smiled to himself, and clapped him on his backside with his hand, and said," However that be, thou wilt be king, and wilt begin thy reign happily, for God finds thee worthy of it. And do thou remember the blows that Manahem hath given thee, as being a signal of the change of thy fortune. And truly this will be the best reasoning for thee, that thou love justice [towards men], and piety towards God, and clemency towards thy citizens; yet do I know how thy whole conduct will be, that thou wilt not be such a one, for thou wilt excel all men in happiness, and obtain an everlasting reputation, but wilt forget piety and righteousness; and these crimes will not be concealed from God, at the conclusion of thy life, when thou wilt find that he will be mindful of them, and punish time for them." Now at that time Herod did not at all attend to what Manahem said, as having no hopes of such advancement; but a little afterward, when he was so fortunate as to be advanced to the dignity of king, and was in the height of his dominion, he sent for Manahem, and asked him how long he should reign. Manahem did not tell him the full length of his reign; wherefore, upon that silence of his, he asked him further, whether he should reign ten years or not? He replied, "Yes, twenty, nay, thirty years;" but did not assign the just determinate limit of his reign. Herod was satisfied with these replies, and gave Manahem his hand, and dismissed him; and from that time he continued to honor all the Essens. We have thought it proper to relate these facts to our readers, how strange soever they be, and to declare what hath happened among us, because many of these Essens have, by their excellent virtue, been thought worthy of this knowledge of Divine revelations.”

Josephus on the Essenes

AJ 15.11.4-5
Antiquities of the Jews

Love, Life, Men, God

“O Petronius, thou hast seen what endurance and comfort that religion gives in misfortune, how much patience and courage before death; so come and see how much happiness it gives in ordinary, common days of life. People thus far did not know a God whom man could love, hence they did not love one another; and from that came their misfortune, for as light comes from the sun, so does happiness come from love. Neither lawgivers nor philosophers taught this truth, and it did not exist in Greece or Rome; and when I say, not in Rome, that means the whole world. The dry and cold teaching of the Stoics, to which virtuous people rally, tempers the heart as a sword is tempered, but it makes it indifferent rather than better.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Quo Vadis

Quo Vadis (1895)

Love, Life, Death, God

“Thou hast been called, O sleep! the friend of woe;
But ’tis the happy that have called thee so.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

Canto XV, st. 11.
The Curse of Kehama (1810)

Happiness, Sleep

“This is my perspective and has always been my perspective on life: I have a very grim, pessimistic view of it. I always have, since I was a little boy. It hasn’t gotten worse with age or anything. I do feel that it’s a grim, painful, nightmarish, meaningless experience, and that the only way that you can be happy is if you tell yourself some lies and deceive yourself.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Press conference for You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger at the Cannes Film Festival (2011) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yVPS8XBoBE&feature=related.

Life, Pain, Happiness, Age

“Awards at each different stage have a special meaning and significance. They mean differently to everyone. When you get an award at the start of your career, it definitely is a stepping stone, and in the middle stages, awards become a source of inspiration, a source of happiness. It is a memento of something that is probably well deserved for the amount of effort put in. Filmfare Awards are something to be proud of. When one gets a Filmfare Award, people know an actor has arrived.”

Rani Mukerji (1978) Indian film actress

[filmfare.com, What do Filmfare Awards mean to me?, http://www.filmfare.com/awards2001/spotpoll.html, 23 April, 2006]
Famous Quotes

Happiness, People, Effort

“One of the most serious obstacles to happiness is the awkwardness of modern man, with his mind full of doctrines and abstract formulas, when he attempts to re-establish contact with real emotions. Animals and unsophisticated people achieve happiness more naturally, because their desires are simpler and truer. Civilized man, a parrot enslaved by his chattering, ceaselessly inoculates himself with loves and hatreds which he does not actually fee.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

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

Love, Happiness, People, Nature

“Now, if we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous, we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor. If you will work in co-operation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make.
I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community, because even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on, and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vashnavas, Khatris, also Bengalis, Madrasis and so on, will vanish.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Address to the Constituent Assembly (1947)

Happiness, People, Communication, Change

“After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

I, 1
On the Improvement of the Understanding (1662)

Life, Happiness, Fear, Communication

“I want to be sublimely happy.”

Frances Bean Cobain (1992) American artist

" High School Musical Starring Frances Bean Cobain http://www.harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/red-carpet-dresses/a235/frances-bean-cobain-0308/" (2008)

Happiness

“Happiness is not the end of duty, it is a constituent of it. It is in it and of it; not an equivalent, but an element.”

Henry Giles (1809–1882) Irish minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 297.

Happiness

“I believe anyone who supports feminism is anti-woman even if they are not conscious of it. Feminism and "female empowerment" has led to a generation of the least happy women in history. They are lost and are being told that they are the EXACT same as men and should be able to compete at the same level in all fields of life. How sad to always fail at something you are supposed to be equal in. How sad to be led astray to never get married then hit a wall where you wish for nothing more than a family but cannot have it… simply because you bought into this false notion of feminism that promised happiness and fulfillment. The reality is women are biologically different and different things will make them happy.”

Lauren Southern (1995) Canadian libertarian commentator

AMA on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/4zlf89/lauren_southern_ama/d6wtbfx/ (August 25, 2016)

Life, Women, Men, Happiness

“You can see, therefore, that as a life story mine does not matter much. As a means, however, of proving certain facts which I know to be essential to the future happiness and progress of humanity—the fact of the Masters, the unfolding future for which the world war (just ended) is but a preparatory stage, and the possibility of telepathic and direct spiritual contacts and knowledge—what I say may prove to be of service. Many isolated mystics, disciples and aspiring men and women down the ages have known all these things. The time has now come when the masses of men everywhere must know them too.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

The Introduction
The Unfinished Autobiography (1951)

Life, Women, Men, War

“All that has been done to weaken the foundation of an implicit faith in the Bible, as a whole, has been at the expense of the sense of religious obligation, and at the cost of human happiness.”

Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819–1881) Novelist, poet, editor

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 36.

Happiness, Faith, Sense

“To live among friends is the primary essential of happiness.”

William Thomson (1824–1907) British physicist and engineer

Lord Kelvin’s Replies to Addresses given on the Celebration of the Jubilee of his Professorship (June 15-17, 1896). Quoted in Lord Kelvin, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Glasgow 1846-1899 (1899) by George F. Fitzgerald http://historical.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/cul.math/docviewer?did=03620002

Happiness

“Most writers enjoy two periods of happiness – when a glorious idea comes to mind and, secondly, when a last page has been written and you haven’t had time to know how much better it ought to be.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

International Herald Tribune, January 3, 1978.

Happiness, Idea, Time

“When in the inmost Above all knowledge and science, we find within us a limitless ignorance when, passing beyond every name given to God or creatures, we expire and pass to an eternal Unnamable where we are lost Being the Soul follows the Divine drawing and gives itself up freely to the Spirit of God, it tastes infinite happiness impossible to comprehend, in which the whole being dissolves, caught and embraced between immense Love and unending Happiness, under the regard of Love Himself”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

Source: The Seven Steps of the Ladder of Spiritual Love, p. 104

Love, God, Happiness, Soul

“It is a kind of happiness to know how unhappy we must be.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

C’est une espèce de bonheur, de connaître jusqu’à quel point on doit être malheureux.
Maxim 8 of the Maximes supprimées.
Later Additions to the Maxims

Happiness

“Who is Gloria Estefan today? I'm very fulfilled as a woman. I've been able to have a wonderful family life, a fantastic career. I have a lot of good friends around me. My family has been my grounding point, and rooted me deeply to the earth... I'm very happy. I've done everything I ever wanted to do. The key to me was -- I told my husband when we were in our 20s -- I'm going to work really hard, so one day I won't have to work so hard. And to me what that was, was having choices. And I do have choices now -- and I have take full advantage of that. It's important for me now to be here for my little girl [Emily, age 12]. My son is full grown -- and I know have quickly that goes. So, I'm balancing being a mother -- which to me is the most important role I have on this earth -- and still being creative, writing -- which is what I love to do. So, I've been able to branch out into not just writing songs like you have heard through the years -- but writing children's books, writing a screenplay. But at my core that's what I am: a writer. And that's what I enjoy doing behind the scenes: writing the songs for albums, recording it. And that's why you have seen me take more of a back seat to being the center of attention, and being out on tour and doing that kind of thing. I've stepped up a lot of my charity work. This year, the five concerts I did were all for charity: different ones and my own foundation. So, that's becoming a bigger and bigger part of my life -- as I wanted it to be. And [I keep] just growing and evolving.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

iTunes interview (released June 2, 2007)
2007

Love, Life, Happiness, Children

“Awl human happiness is conservatiff; 2 thirds ov the pleasure in sliding down hill consists in drawing the sled back. I don't serpoze thare would be enny fun in sliding down a hill 34 miles long.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

Happiness, Pleasure, Drawing

“Both hurting and happiness make me feel more alive, but as I get older it seems that hurting's the low hanging fruit. So I pick it.”

Ze Frank (1972) American online performance artist

http://www.zefrank.com/wiki/index.php/the_show:_06-05-06
"The Show" (www.zefrank.com/theshow/)

Happiness, Feeling, Hurt

“Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State, be it the advantage of a class, the safety of the power of the country, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the support of any speculative idea, the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute. Liberty alone demands for its realisation the limitation of the public authority, for liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

"Nationality" (1862)

Happiness, Idea, Support, Time

“We use up in the passions the stuff that was given us for happiness.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

Happiness, Passion

“The most pitiless warriors against drugs have always been militant progressives. In China, the most savage attack on drug use occurred when the country was convulsed by a modern western doctrine of universal emancipation — Maoism. It is no accident that the crusade against drugs is led today by a country wedded to the pursuit of happiness — the United States. For the corollary of that improbable quest is a puritan war on pleasure.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Unsaved: Artificial Paradises (p. 141)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

War, Happiness, Pleasure, Wedding

“When they dug the body out of the alley, it made even the hardened construction workers and emergency squad cops ill. Not one bone was left unbroken. The very flesh seemed to have been masticated as if by a nation of cannibal dogs. Even so, the three inured excavators who finally used winding sheets and shovels to bring the shapeless mess up from its five-foot grave agreed that it was incredible, totally past belief, that the head and face were untouched.
And they all agreed that the expression on the face was not one of happiness. There were many possible explanations for that expression, but no one would have said terror, for it was not terror. They would not have said helplessness, for it was not that, either. They might have settled on a pathetic sense of loss, had their sensibilities run that deep, but none of them would have felt that the expression said, with great finality: a man may truly live in his dreams, his noblest dreams, but only, only if he is worthy of those dreams.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

This last line has often been paraphrased: "You can live in your dreams, but only if you are worthy of them."
Delusion for a Dragon Slayer (1966)

Happiness, Dogs, Dreams, Sense

“A few friends that also drew manga gathered at the pub regardless of the fact did we drink any alcohol, we would talk excitedly about manga. We will get so preoccupied with the topic, that we always miss the last train. Although we all have the feeling, “We’re so old already, why are we still mucking around like this?” But whenever we hear something like “I want to draw this!!”, the passion from everybody, our spirits are refreshed with new enthusiasm. This time I even got Moritaishi Sensei to draw the omake for me. Wah!! (Happy)”

Hiromu Arakawa (1973) award winning Japanese manga artist

Interview with mobuta.com (2004)

Happiness, Alcohol, Feeling, Drink

“I'm not defined by where I came from. I never took part in the rules and hatred that sometimes go along with religion. But if my parents are happy with what they believe, then I'm happy to stay out of their way. We agree to disagree.”

Katy Perry (1984) American singer, songwriter and actress

Cosmopolitan magazine (2009)

Happiness, Religion, Way, Parent

“Am I happy? There are moments when I am overwhelmed by a sense of my success and ease. I become aware that thousands of things which had formerly been forbidden fruit to me are at my command now. I distinctly recall that crushing sense of being debarred from everything, and then I feel as though the whole world were mine. One day I paused in front of an old East Side restaurant that I had often passed in my days of need and despair. The feeling of desolation and envy with which I used to peek in its windows came back to me. It gave me pangs of self-pity for my past and a thrilling sense of my present power. The prices that had once been prohibitive seemed so wretchedly low now. …
And yet in all such instances I feel a peculiar yearning for the very days when the doors of that restaurant were closed to me and when the Canal Street merchant was a magnate of commerce in my estimation. Somehow, encounters of this kind leave me dejected. The gloomiest past is dearer than the brightest present. In my case there seems to be a special reason for feeling this way. My sense of triumph is coupled with a brooding sense of emptiness and insignificance, of my lack of anything like a great, deep interest.”

Abraham Cahan book The Rise of David Levinsky

The Rise of David Levinsky (1917)

Happiness, World, Way, Feeling

“I'm very happy as I am. I realise that I made sacrifices early in my career and that it was hard on my relationships because, when I am working, I am very focused and it isn't easy, when you have been in the studio all day, to say to someone, 'I'll meet up with you later on.' I learned that it was necessary to be dedicated and put work first. But, at the same time, it was a wonderful feeling to be successful at doing something I loved.”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

Women's Weekly interview (2006)

Love, Happiness, Feeling, Learning

“Beyond the tragic blows and the brooding over violence,
beyond the labour over errors and repenting over deeds,
beyond the evenings without dialogues and the nights
full of suspicion,
beyond the days in which the happy ones revel
in their narrow happiness –
is it possible that to give blows to one another is the only reality?”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Chorus

Happiness, Error, Reality, Night

“Improvements in housing—in which the Government has played a large part—is another direction in which standards have tended since the War to appreciate. Comfortable housing is an essential condition to the welfare and happiness of the people.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Federation of British Industries (13 April 1937), quoted in Service of Our Lives (1937), p. 116.
1937

War, Happiness, People, Parting

“Of course some sort of general idea they must have, if they were to do their work intelligently — though as little of one as possible. For particulars, as every one knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers but fretsawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World (1932), Ch. 1

Happiness, Intelligence, Idea, Evil

“You better beware, my friends all told me
When they saw that I was falling for you.
You better beware they told me that girl ain't gonna be true.
She'll have you walking with your head in the air,
Have you thinking that she really, really care.
Then-a, then she'll let you down, she'll really let you down.
She's a girl with no understanding.
And when she's getting tired of you hanging around,
She'll let you drop and say… have a happy landing”

Smokey Robinson (1940) American R&B singer-songwriter and record producer

happy landing
Happy Landing, written by Smokey Robinson and Ronald White (1962)
Song lyrics, With The Miracles

Happiness, Girl, Understanding, Thinking

“So pardon my cynical twist, but what are you doing with that 20,000×20,000 double-precision floating point matrix you say you need to invert today? If you answer "nutt'n, I jus kinda wondered what it'd be like, you know", you should be very happy that I am most likely more than 3000 miles away from you, or I would come over and slap you hard.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: Upper limits of CL http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/b3b24fb7512f220f (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Lisp

Happiness

“There are in France some fifty thousand young men of good birth and fairly well off who are encouraged to live a life of complete idleness. They must either cease to exist or must come to see that there can be no happiness, no health even, without regular daily labor of some sort … The need of work is in me.”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer

As quoted in Contemporary Portraits (1920) by Frank Harris, p. 263

Life, Men, Happiness, Health

“This is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King,
Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That He our deadly forfeit should release,
And with His Father work us a perpetual peace.”

John Milton On the Morning of Christ's Nativity

Stanza 1, line 1
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity (1629)

Happiness, Peace, Wedding, Singing

“Capitalism was reasonably content under Hitler, happy under Mussolini, very happy under Franco and delirious under General Pinochet.”

John Ralston Saul The Doubter's Companion

"Capitalism"
The Doubter's Companion (1994)

Happiness

“It seems to me that I may be living too long. Indeed: my nearest relations have all died, and so have some of my best friends, and even some of my best pupils. However, I do not have a reason to complain. I am grateful and happy to be alive, and still be able to continue with my work, if only just. My work seems to me more important than ever.”

Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science

As quoted in "At 90, and Still Dynamic : Revisiting Sir Karl Popper and Attending His Birthday Party" by Eugene Yue-Ching Ho, in Intellectus 23 (Jul-Sep 1992) http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~tkpw/hk-ies/n23a/

Happiness

“I think, like a lot of people on this issue, I have really changed my thinking here to, ‘I don’t ever want to stand in front of anybody’s happiness.’ That’s not my job, okay? If that word – ‘marriage’ – is really, really that important to you, I can go with it.”

Bruce Jenner (1949) American reality television personality and retired Olympic decathlete champion

On The Ellen Degeneres Show http://www.ew.com/article/2015/09/08/ellen-degeneres-caitlyn-jenner-gay-marriage.

Marriage, Happiness, People, Thinking

“How intolerable people are sometimes who are happy and successful in everything.”

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

Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

Happiness, People, Success

“The God of Hell should be held in loathing, contempt and scorn. A God who threatens eternal pain should be hated, not loved — cursed, not worshiped. A heaven presided over by such a God must be below the lowest hell. I want no part in any heaven in which the saved, the ransomed and redeemed will drown with shouts of joy the cries and sobs of hell — in which happiness will forget misery, where the tears of the lost only increase laughter and double bliss.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The Great Infidels (1881)

Love, God, Pain, Hate

“For it is not enough just to give men rights. They must be able to use those rights in their personal pursuit of happiness.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Voting Rights Act signing speech (1965)

Men, Happiness, Personality

“But Watson had one towering advantage over all of them: in addition to being extremely clever he had something important to be clever about. This is an advantage which scientists enjoy over most other people engaged in intellectual pursuits, and they enjoy it at all levels of capability. To be a first-rate scientist it is not necessary (and certainly not sufficient) to be extremely clever, anyhow in a pyrotechnic sense. One of the great social revolutions brought about by scientific research has been the democratization of learning. Anyone who combines strong common sense with an ordinary degree of imaginativeness can become a creative scientist, and a happy one besides, in so far as happiness depends upon being able to develop to the limit of one's abilities.”

Peter Medawar (1915–1987) scientist

1960s, Lucky Jim, 1968

Happiness, People, Imagination, Sense

“Like most people of my age, I feel a longing for what is lost and cannot be restored. But if the happy pursuits and casual beauty of youth prove ephemeral, something better can endure, and endure until our last moment on earth. And that is the honor we earn and the love we give if at a moment in our lives we sacrifice for something greater than self-interest.
We cannot choose the moments. They arrive unbidden by us. We can choose to let the moments pass, and avoid the difficulties they entail. But the loss we would incur by that choice is much dearer than the tribute we once paid to vanity and pleasure.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

1990s, Speech at Ohio Wesleyan University (1997)

Love, Happiness, People, Pleasure

“Outside of that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is liberty.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Absurd Creation

Death, Happiness, Joy

“Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: The enjoyments of life (such was now my theory) are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object. Once make them so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient. They will not bear a scrutinizing examination. Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your scrutiny, your self-interrogation, exhaust themselves on that; and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will inhale happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelling on it or thinking about it, without either forestalling it in imagination, or putting it to flight by fatal questioning. This theory now became the basis of my philosophy of life. And I still hold to it as the best theory for all those who have but a moderate degree of sensibility and of capacity for enjoyment; that is, for the great majority of mankind."

Autobiography, Ch 5, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10378/10378-h/10378-h.htm#link2H_NOTE https://www.laits.utexas.edu/poltheory/mill/auto/auto.c05.html source: Autobiography (1873), Ch. 5: A Crisis in My Mental History (p. 100)

Happiness