Happiness

But neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature requires, so he is free to seek his happiness in any mindless fraud, but the torture of frustration is all he will find, unless he seeks the happiness proper to man. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

Just as I support my life, neither by robbery nor alms, but by my own effort, so I do not seek to derive my happiness from the injury or the favour others of , but earn it by my own achievement. Just as I do not consider the pleasure of others as the goal of my life, so I do not consider my pleasure as the goal of the lives of others. Just as there are no contradictions in my values and no conflicts among my desires - so there are no victims and no conflicts of interest among rational men, men who do not desire the unearned and do not view one another with a cannibal's lust, men who neither make sacrifice nor accept them.

I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.

Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye.

An ordinary man can . . . surround himself with two thousand books . . . and thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is possible to be happy.

I went through a period of first successes. Then there was the inevitable change: the bad newspaper articles. Some people don't care about that, but I do. I'm hurt. I feel it. I don't think I've done anything dreadful. Sometimes you do things for reasons the press doesn't know. But I'm happy to go on as I have.

I accept life unconditionally. Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.

The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.

There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life.

What a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has. . . . . What a man is in himself, what accompanies him when he is alone, what no one can give him or take away, is obviously more essential to him than everything he has in the way of possessions, or even what he may be in the eyes of the world.