Some thoughts on happiness

 Those who seek for something more than happiness in this world must not complain if happiness is not their portion.

Froude.

Nothing is more idle than to inquire after happiness, which nature has kindly placed within our reach.

Johnson.

Our happiness in this world depends on the affections we are enabled to inspire.

Duchesse de Praslin.

 

That state of life is most happy where superfluities are not required and necessaries are not wanting.

Plutarch. 

There is a gentle element, and man may breathe it with a calm, unruffled soul, and drink its living waters, till his heart is pure; and this is human happiness.

Willis. 

When we are not too anxious about happiness and unhappiness, but devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty, then happiness comes of itself—nay, even springs from the midst of a life of troubles and anxieties and privations.

Humboldt.

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions—the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of a playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of pleasant thought and feeling.

Coleridge

Happiness is much more equally divided than some of us imagine. One man shall possess most of the materials, but little of the thing; another may possess much of the thing, but very few of the materials. In this particular view of it, happiness has been beautifully compared to the man in the desert—he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack.

Colton..