Website owner:  James Miller

On Personal Happiness

   Those who know when they have enough are rich. 
   
                                                  Chinese Proverb




   When we cannot find contentment in ourselves, it is useless to 
   seek it elsewhere. 
   
                                                  La Rochefoucauld 




   How happy is he, born or taught, that serveth not 
      another's will,
   Whose armor is his honest thought,
      and simple truth his utmost skill. 
   
                                                  Sir H. Wotton 




   The great lesson to be learned is that Happiness is within us.  
   No passing amusement, no companionship, no material possession 
   can permanently satisfy.  We must hoard up our own Strength.  
   We must depend upon our own Resources for amusement and 
   pleasure.  We must make or mar our own Tranquillity.  To teach 
   them this is the preparation for Life which we can give our 
   children. 

                                                  Phil A. Ledger 




   No man ever found a happy life by chance,
   Or yawned it into being with a wish; 
   Or with the snout of groveling appetite ever smelled it out, 
     and grubbed it from the dirt. 
   An art it is, and must be learned; 
   and learned with unremitting effort, or be lost. 
       

                                                  Edward Young




   True happiness never entered at an eye. True happiness resides 
   in things unseen. 

                                                  Edward Young




   The greatest wealth is contentment with a little.




   He has enough who is content. 




   Contentment comes of the heart, not of the house. 




   Contentment consisteth not in heaping more fuel, but in taking 
   away some fire. 




   Contentment is the philosopher's stone, which turns all it 
   toucheth into gold;  the poor man is rich with it and the rich 
   man is poor without it.  




   Nature requires little --- fancy much. 




   Better bring thy mind to thy condition than have thy condition 
   brought to thy mind.




   Hope for the best, get ready for the worst, and then take what 
   God chooses to send. 



   Happiness can be built only on virtue, and must of necessity 
   have truth for its foundation. 

                                                 Coleridge





   No man is happy who does not think himself so. 

                                  Marcus Antoninus




   Happiness is like a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always 
   beyond your grasp, but which, if you sit down quietly, may 
   alight on you. 
   
   Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally.  
   -- Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose 
   chase, and is never attained. 

                                                   Hawthorne





   Happiness is neither within us only, or without us;  it is the 
   union of ourselves with God. 

                                                     Pascal



   Few things are needful to make the wise man happy, but nothing 
   satisfies the fool;  and this is the reason why so many of 
   mankind are miserable. 

                                                Rochefoucauld




   Happiness is like a sunbeam, which the least shadow intercepts, 
   while adversity is often as the rain of spring. 

                                             Chinese proverb




   Happiness is the legitimate fruitage of love and service.  Set 
   happiness before you as an end, no matter in what guise of 
   wealth, or fame, or oblivion even, and you will not attain it.  
   But renounce it and seek the pleasure of God, and that instant 
   is the birth of your own. 

                                                 A. S. Hardy



   False happiness is like false money;  it passes for a time as 
   well as the true, and serves some ordinary occasions; but when 
   brought to the touch, we find the lightness and alloy, and feel 
   the loss. 
   
                                                        Pope




   Man courts happiness in a thousand shapes;  and the faster he 
   follows it the swifter it flees from him.  Almost everything 
   promises happiness to us at a distance, but when we come 
   nearer, either we fall short of it, or it falls short of our 
   expectation;  and it is hard to say which of these is the 
   greater disappointment.  Our hopes are usually bigger than the 
   enjoyment can satisfy;  and an evil long feared, besides that 
   it may never come, is many times more painful and troublesome 
   than the evil itself when it comes. 

                                                  Tillotson





   If the principles of contentment are not within us, the 
   height of station and worldly grandeur will as soon add a 
   cubit to a man's stature as to his happiness. 

                                                 Sterne





   The secret of happiness is renunciation. 

                            Andrew Carnegie




   Unhappy is the man who is not so much dissatisfied with what he 
   has as with what the other fellow possesses. 

                                                Chauncey M. Depew




   The really happy man never laughs -- or seldom -- though he 
   may smile.  He does not need to laugh, for laughter, like 
   weeping, is a relief of tension -- and the happy are not over-
   strung. 
   
                                              F. A. P. Aveling




   Happiness and virtue rest upon each other; the best are not 
   only the happiest, but the happiest are usually the best. 

                                                      Bulwer




   The sunshine of life is made up of very little beams that are 
   bright all the time.  To give up something, when giving up will 
   prevent unhappiness;  to yield, when persisting will chafe and 
   fret others;  to go a little around rather than come up against 
   another;  to take an ill look or a cross word quietly, rather 
   than resent or return it --- these are the ways in which clouds 
   and storms are kept off, and a pleasant and steady sunshine 
   secured. 
   
                                                   Aikin






   True happiness renders men kind and sensible;  and that 
   happiness is always shared with others. 

                                         Montesquieu





   No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable. 

                                         L. E. Landon




   The state of life is most happy where superfluities are not 
   required, and necessities are not wanting. 

                                                 Plutarch




   There is in all of us an impediment to perfect happiness, 
   namely, weariness of what we possess, and a desire for what we 
   have not. 
   
                                           Mad. Rieux




   It is not the place, nor the condition, but the mind alone that 
   can make any one happy or miserable. 

                                                 L'Estrange




   There is little pleasure in the world that is sincere and true 
   beside that of doing our duty and doing good.  No other is 
   comparable to this. 
   
                                                    Tillotson



   Objects we ardently pursue bring little happiness when gained;  
   most of our pleasures come from unexpected sources. 
   
                                               Herbert Spencer



   
   The true felicity of life is to be free from anxieties and 
   perturbations;  to understand and do our duties to God and man, 
   and to enjoy the present without any serious dependence on the 
   future. 
   
                                                         Seneca



   Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, lie in three 
   words: health, peace and competence. 

                                                       Pope





   Human happiness consists in activity.  Such is the constitution 
   of our nature.  

                                                   J. M. Good



   I have now reigned above fifty years in victory or peace, 
   beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies,  and respected 
   by my allies.   Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have 
   waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have 
   been wanting to my felicity.  In this situation, I have 
   diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness 
   which have fallen to my lot;  they amount to fourteen.  O man, 
   place not thy confidence in the present world! 
   
                                       The Caliph Abdalrahman





   If I may speak of myself, my happy hours have far exceeded, and 
   far exceed, the scanty numbers of the Caliph of Spain;  and I 
   shall not scruple to add, that many of them are due to the 
   pleasing labor of composing my history. 

                                                         Gibbon



   It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and 
   occupation that gives happiness.


                                                   Thomas Jefferson




   Coarse rice to eat, water to drink, my bended arm for a pillow 
   - therein is happiness.  Wealth and rank attained through immoral 
   means are nothing but drifting clouds.


                                                     Confucius