Happiness and Misery

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

Francis Bacon, in Happiness and Misery

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

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

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

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

Arthur Schopenhauer, 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

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

Carl Sandburg, in Happiness and Misery

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. If that is granted, all else follows.

George Orwell, 1984, in Happiness and Misery

The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of.

Blaise Pascal, in Happiness and Misery and Love and Hate

Don't underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.

Joan Powers, Pooh's Little Instruction Book, in Happiness and Misery

What makes old age so sad is not that our joys but our hopes cease.

Jean Paul Richter, in Happiness and Misery and Life and Death

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

Joy is not in things, it is in us.

Jess Lair, in Happiness and Misery