#happines

I would cling to unhappiness because it was a known, familiar state. When I was happier, it was because I knew I was on my way back to misery. I've never been convinced that happiness is the object of the game. I'm wary of happiness. ↗

— Hugh Laurie

#misery #misery

If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy. ↗

— Dorothy Parker

#authors #elements-of-style #favors #grammar #happiness

You must be the best judge of your own happiness. ↗

— Jane Austen

#jane-austen

Because minds do blow and hearts do break. Those are not just sayings. And wolves and roaches are not the only creatures that chew off their legs to get out of traps—human beings do that, too. ↗

— Robin Silverman

#hearts #mental-health #minds #sadness #mental-health

Certainly the most destructive vice if you like, that a person can have. More than pride, which is supposedly the number one of the cardinal sins - is self pity. Self pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatred's a subset of self pity and not the other way around - ' It destroys everything around it, except itself '. Self pity will destroy relationships, it'll destroy anything that's good, it will fulfill all the prophecies it makes and leave only itself. And it's so simple to imagine that one is hard done by, and that things are unfair, and that one is underappreciated, and that if only one had had a chance at this, only one had had a chance at that, things would have gone better, you would be happier if only this, that one is unlucky. All those things. And some of them may well even be true. But, to pity oneself as a result of them is to do oneself an enormous disservice. I think it's one of things we find unattractive about the american culture, a culture which I find mostly, extremely attractive, and I like americans and I love being in america. But, just occasionally there will be some example of the absolutely ravening self pity that they are capable of, and you see it in their talk shows. It's an appalling spectacle, and it's so self destructive. I almost once wanted to publish a self help book saying 'How To Be Happy by Stephen Fry : Guaranteed success'. And people buy this huge book and it's all blank pages, and the first page would just say - ' Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself - And you will be happy '. Use the rest of the book to write down your interesting thoughts and drawings, and that's what the book would be, and it would be true. And it sounds like 'Oh that's so simple', because it's not simple to stop feeling sorry for yourself, it's bloody hard. Because we do feel sorry for ourselves, it's what Genesis is all about. ↗

— Stephen Fry

#depression #depression-humor #happiness #marriage-advice #morality

And one who is just of his own free will shall not lack for happiness; and he will never come to utter ruin. ↗

— Aeschylus

#free #free will #happiness #his #just

Heaven takes care that no man secures happiness by crime. ↗

— Vittorio Alfieri

#crime #happiness #heaven #man #secures

To have the sense of creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being alive. ↗

— Matthew Arnold

#alive #being #creative #great #happiness

Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness. ↗

— Aristotle

#aiming #also #always #because #beyond

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions. ↗

— Joseph Addison

#companions #conversation #enjoyment #few #first