#sure

Repose, leisure, peace, belong among the elements of happiness. If we have not escaped from harried rush, from mad pursuit, from unrest, from the necessity of care, we are not happy. And what of contemplation? Its very premise is freedom from the fetters of workaday busyness. Moreover, it itself actualizes this freedom by virtue of being intuition. ↗

— Josef Pieper

#contemplation #freedom #happiness #leisure #freedom

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding. ↗

— Leonardo da Vinci

#noblest #pleasure #understanding

My faith grew strong, and I sent a letter (as I was ordered) to the Rev. Dignitary of the Cathedral of Exeter. I was assured, before I sent it, he would not answer it. ↗

— Joanna Southcott

#assured #before #cathedral #exeter #faith

I have never sought to displease; I merely seek pleasure and avoid the pain it causes those who work to produce it. That is what it means to live by the leisure principle. ↗

— Bauvard

#humor #leisure #pain #pleasure #funny

Charity didn't mean to waste the entire afternoon. But her favorite daytime drama was on the telly. It was always the same, she thought, stretching out on the bed to watch. The sex got her interested first, and then the story. Before long she was totally hooked, and deep into the intricate plots and the glamorous goings-on. And afterwards, she just felt drained. She was sound asleep by the time Lady Margaret came home. ↗

— Elizabeth Jane Howard

#soap-operas #home

A study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon? There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#colour #exposure #isolation #jargon #life

What I see as the greatest threat to America is that the American people will put political pressure on their leaders to pull out of Iraq before we should. ↗

— Thelma Drake

#american #american people #before #greatest #greatest threat

But let no one imagine that we were mere ascetics. There is no more complex pleasure than thought, and it was to thought that we delivered ourselves over. ↗

— Jorge Luis Borges

#pleasure #thought #imagination

Only a fool can be happy. For happiness consists of two contradictory elements: contentment and pleasure. Enjoy pleasure and you have no contentment; be content and you have no pleasure. For this reason happiness is conceivable only for those who enjoy themselves without thinking that they will always want more and thus be discontented, or for those who are content without thinking that they have no pleasure. Whoever reflects can never be happy, unless he is a fanatic and thus blinded…thus exercising control over his intelligence with his feelings, instead of the other way round ↗

— Marcellus Emants

#pleasure #reflection #intelligence

Remember the botched brothel-visit in L’Education sentimentale and remember its lesson. Do not participate: happiness lies in the imagination, not the act. Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory. ↗

— Julian Barnes

#happiness #life #memory #pleasure #education