Happiness

You search endlessly for permanent happiness in a world where nothing is permanent.

I wish I could manage to be glad!  Only I never can remember the rule.  You must be very happy, living in this wood, and being glad whenever you like!

O merry, merry, merry,
like only dogs know how to be happy
and nothing more, with an absolute
shameless nature.

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves - the ethical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty.  The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth.

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.

 Life is too precious, too important, too short for quick fixes that in the end fix nothing and from which we learn nothing except that we have wasted our time trying to find happiness in short cuts. The only way to real fulfilment is to look inside see what is there,  then look outside and see what difference we can make with what we have to offer - whether we knew we had it in us, or whether it was something we grew within us over the coldest, most seemingly dormant, or darkest times, in order to reap the richest harvest of all.

America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy.

It is only in the space that our thoughts and our feelings enclose that our happiness can breathe in freedom.

The purpose of our lives is happiness

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.