Quotes on Happiness
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64. Happiness
"Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A peasant has not the capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher."
Boswell: Life
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222. Happiness; Life
"That man is never happy for the present is so true, that all his relief from unhappiness is only forgetting himself for a little while. Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment."
Boswell: Life
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237. Happiness; Wealth
[Entering the estate of Lord Scarsdale, Boswell describes a long list of assets indicating great wealth.] Boswell: "One should think that the proprietor of all this must be happy." Johnson: "Nay, Sir, all this excludes but one evil -- poverty."
Boswell: Life
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251. Happiness; Taverns/Inns
"There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn."
Boswell: Life
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447. Envy; Happiness; Hope
"Envy is commonly reciprocal. We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself."
Johnson: Rasselas
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from Rasselas.
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656. Happiness; Security
"To make any happiness sincere it is necessary that we believe it to be lasting; since whatever we suppose ourselves in danger of losing must be enjoyed with solicitude and uneasiness, and the more value we set upon it, the more must the present possession be imbittered."
Johnson: Rambler #53 (September 18, 1750)
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726. Complacency; Happiness
"He that is happy, by whatever means, desires nothing but the continuance of happiness."
Johnson: Idler #18 (August 12, 1758)
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734. Happiness; Home; Humanity
"The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to those hours which splendour cannot gild, and acclamation cannot exhilarate; those soft intervals of unbended amusement, in which a man shrinks to his natural dimensions, and throws aside the ornaments or disguises which he feels in privacy to be useless incumbrances, and to lose all effect when they become familiar. To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution."
Johnson: Rambler #68 (November 10, 1750)
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901. Happiness; Relativity
"Our sense of delight is in a great measure comparative, and arises at once from the sensations which we feel, and those which we remember: thus ease after torment is pleasure for a time, and we are very agreeably recreated when the body, chilled with the weather, is gradually recovering its tepidity; but the joy ceases when we have forgot the cold; we must fall below ease again if we desire to rise above it, and purchase new felicity by voluntary pain."
Johnson: Rambler #80 (December 22, 1750)
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963. Advice; Goodness; Happiness; Life
"Little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every man could conform to the right as soon as he was shown it."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
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1,246. Gratitude; Happiness
"The good of our present state is merely comparative, and the evil which every man feels will be sufficient to disturb and harass him if he does not know how much he escapes."
Johnson: Rambler #150 (August 24, 1751)
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1,292. Happiness; Humanity
"Human happiness has always its abatements; the brightest sunshine of success is not without a cloud."
Johnson: Addison (Lives of the Poets)
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1,457. Happiness; Life; Old Age; Youth
"Such is the condition of life that something is always wanting to happiness. In youth we have warm hopes, which are soon blasted by rashness and negligence, and great designs which are defeated by inexperience. In age, we have knowledge and prudence, without spirit to exert, or motives to prompt them; we are able to plan schemes, and regulate measures, but have not time remaining to bring them to completion."
Johnson: Rambler #196 (February 1, 1752)
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1,468. Happiness; Satisfaction
"The fountain of content must spring up in the mind; and ... he, who has so little knowledge of human nature, as to seek happiness by changing any thing, but his own dispositions, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove."
Johnson: Rambler #6 (April 7, 1750)
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1,470. Happiness; Hope; Memory; Satisfaction
"It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity. The time present is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation."
Johnson: Rambler #203 (February 25, 1752)
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1,474. Happiness; Life; Mortality
"Every period of life is obliged to borrow its happiness from the time to come. In youth we have nothing to entertain us, and in age we derive little from retrospect but hopeless sorrow. Yet the future likewise has its limits, which the imagination dreads to approach, but which we see to be not far distant. The loss of our friends and companions impresses hourly upon the necessity of our own departure; we know that the schemes of man are quickly at an end, that we soon must lie down in the grave with the forgotten multitudes of former ages, and yield our place to others, who, like us, shall be driven a while by hope and fear about the surface of the earth, and then like us be lost in the shades of death. Beyond this termination of our material existence, we are therefore obliged to extend our hopes..."
Johnson: Rambler #203 (February 25, 1752)
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1,536. Happiness
Happiness is enjoyed only in proportion as it is known; and such is the state or folly of man, that it is known only by experience of its contrary.
Johnson: Adventurer #67 (June 26, 1753)
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1,595. Desires; Happiness
"It deserves to be considered, whether the want of that which can never be gained, may not easily be endured."
Johnson: Adventurer #111 (November 27, 1753)
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1,602. Desire; Happiness
"Every man may grow rich by contracting his wishes, and by quiet acquiescence in what has been given him, supply the absence of more."
Johnson: Adventurer #119 (December 25, 1753)
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1,632. Appearance; Desires; Happiness; Poverty
"The species of happiness most obvious to the observation of others, is that which depends upon the goods of fortune; yet even this is often fictitious. There is in the world more poverty than is generally imagined; not only because many whose possessions are large have desires still larger, and many measure their wants by the gratifications which others enjoy: but great numbers are pressed by real necessities which it is their chief ambition to conceal, and are forced to purchase the appearance of competence and cheerfulness at the expence of many comforts and conveniencies of life."
Johnson: Adventurer #120 (December 29, 1753)
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1,775. Happiness; Satisfaction; Wealth
"no sooner do we sit down to enjoy our acquisitions, than we find them insufficient to fill up the vacuities of life."
Johnson: Idler #73 (September 8, 1759)
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1,835. Happiness; Life
"That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own esteem."
Johnson: Adventurer #111 (November 27, 1753)
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1,837. Happiness; Progress; Waste
"It is common to overlook what is near, by keeping the eye fixed upon something remote. In the same manner, present opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied in extensive ranges, and intent upon future advantages. Life, however short, is made still shorter by waste of time; and its progress towards happiness, though naturally slow, is yet retarded by unnecessary labour."
Johnson: Idler #91 (January 12, 1760)
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1,859. Happiness
"Terrestrial happiness is of short continuance. The brightness of the flame is wasting its fuel; the fragrant flower is passing away in its own odours."
Johnson: Idler #101 (March 22, 1760)
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