#pine

My dear Scipio and Laelius. Men, of course, who have no resources in themselves for securing a good and happy life find every age burdensome. But those who look for all happiness from within can never think anything bad which Nature makes inevitable. ↗

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

#age

People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion—these are the two things that govern us. And yet— ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#enjoyment #fearless #happiness #life #love

Times of terror and the deepest misery may arrive, but if there is to be any happiness in this misery it can only be a spiritual happiness, related to the past in the rescue of the culture of early ages and to the future in a serene and indefatigable championship of the spirit in a time which would otherwise completely swallow up the material. ↗

— Hermann Hesse

#happiness #history #past #present #age

The materialistic view of happiness of our age starkly revealed in our understanding of the word "luxury. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#luxury #materialism #age

Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free. ↗

— Thich Nhat Hanh

#buddhism #freedom #happiness #peace #anger

If you stay in the company of anger, pain, or hurt, happiness will find someone else to visit. Make the choice to view all of your past relationships as a gift. Throw out what hasn’t worked in the past and incorporate new concepts. Focus on being happy. ↗

— Kristen Crockett

#happiness #hurt #relationships #anger

Life is painful. It has thorns, like the stem of a rose. Culture and art are the roses that bloom on the stem. The flower is yourself, your humanity. Art is the liberation of the humanity inside yourself. ↗

— Daisaku Ikeda

#destiny #happiness #humanism #inspirational #karma

There are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children's rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead. ↗

— Elizabeth Berg

#joy #religion #art

Do we take less pride in the possession of our home because its walls were built by some unknown carpenter, its tapestries woven by some unknown weaver on a far Oriental shore, in some antique time? No. We show our home to our friends with the pride as if it were our home, which it is. Why then should we take less pride when reading a book written by some long-dead author? Is it not our book just as much, or even more so, than theirs? So the landowner says, ‘Look at my beautiful home! Isn’t it fine?’ And not, ‘Look at the home so-and-so has built.’ Thus we shouldn’t cry, ‘Look what so-and-so has written. What a genius so-and-so is!’ But rather, ‘Look at what I have read! Am I not a genius? Have I not invented these pages? The walls of this universe, did I not build? The souls of these characters, did I not weave? ↗

— Roman Payne

#carpenter #courage #esteem #genius #happiness

كنت كلما رأيتها في لباسها الفلسطيني المليء بالمزركشات والموتيفات الحية والنوار، اعترتني رغبة في أخذ الفرشاة بجنون وتغميسها في لباسها ورسم أشكال مجنونة من ألوان فستانها ↗

— واسيني الأعرج

#happiness #art