#pines

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

Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give. ↗

— Eleanor Roosevelt

#deal #get #give #giving #good

When we were together, I loved you deeply and you gave me so much happiness I can never repay you. ↗

— Arthur Ashe

#gave #happiness #i #i can #loved

Happiness is obsolete: uneconomic. ↗

— Theodor Adorno

#obsolete

Since every man desires happiness, it is evidently no small matter whether he conceives of happiness in terms of work or of enjoyment. ↗

— Irving Babbitt

#desires #enjoyment #every #every man #evidently

Happiness is the reward we get for living to the highest right we know. ↗

— Richard Bach

#happiness #highest #know #living #reward

A mother's happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories. ↗

— Honore de Balzac

#also #beacon #fond #fond memories #future

The ultimate end of human acts is eudaimonia, happiness in the sense of living well, which all men desire; all acts are but different means chosen to arrive at it. ↗

— Hannah Arendt

#arrive #chosen #desire #different #different means

Tell him, on the contrary, that he needs, in the interest of his own happiness, to walk in the path of humility and self-control, and he will be indifferent, or even actively resentful. ↗

— Irving Babbitt

#contrary #even #happiness #him #his

Pleasure only starts once the worm has got into the fruit, to become delightful happiness must be tainted with poison. ↗

— Georges Bataille

#delightful #fruit #got #happiness #into