Happiness and Misery

A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.

Arthur Schopenhauer, in Happiness and Misery

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.

Carl Sandburg, in Happiness and Misery

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves.

William Shakespeare, in Happiness and Misery

A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it; it would be hell on earth.

George Bernard Shaw, in Happiness and Misery

Poverty doesn't bring unhappiness; it brings degradation.

George Bernard Shaw, in Happiness and Misery and Wealth and Poverty

Trouble is part of your life -- if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough.

Dinah Shore, in Happiness and Misery

Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.

Arthur Somers Roche, in Happiness and Misery

The surest way of severely upsetting yourself for hours is by continuing to consider what concerns you most for a single moment too long.

Christopher Spranger, The Effort to Fall, in Happiness and Misery

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much.

Bessie Stanley, in Happiness and Misery and Success and Failure

Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind.

Robert Louis Stevenson, in Happiness and Misery

When the world has once begun to use us ill, it afterwards continues the same treatment with less scruple or ceremony, as men do to a whore.

Jonathan Swift, in Happiness and Misery

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Henry David Thoreau, in Happiness and Misery

Sloppy, raggedy-assed old life. I love it. I never want to die.

Dennis Trudell, in Happiness and Misery and Life and Death

A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live in it.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Happiness and Misery

Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you will cease to be so.

John Stuart Mill, in Happiness and Misery

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Eleanor Roosevelt, in Happiness and Misery

Man is only happy as he finds a work worth doing, and does it well.

E. Merrill Root, in Happiness and Misery and Work and Recreation

If we couldn't laugh, we'd all go insane.

Jimmy Buffett, in Happiness and Misery

Comedy is tragedy plus time.

Carol Burnett, in Happiness and Misery

All who would win joy, must share it; happiness was born a twin.

Lord Byron, in Happiness and Misery