Some Quotations that Started Me Thinking About Happiness


Bursts
Bursts

When I started thinking about happiness, several quotations made a special impression:

"The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up." Mark Twain

"There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy." Robert Louis Stevenson (I ended up using this quotation as an epigraph to The Happiness Project.)

"Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." Luke 10:41-42

"Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating." Simone Weil

"What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner." Colette

"It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light." G.K. Chesterton (This is true on so many levels.)

"A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart." Joseph Addison

"Order is Heaven's first law." Alexander Pope

How about you? Do you have a favorite quote, one that has shaped your thinking?

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