We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion if we want to be happy.

In every ill turn of fortune, the most unhappy sort of unfortunate man is the one who has been happy.

Just to fill the hour—that is happiness.

One is never as unhappy as one thinks, nor as happy as one hopes.

Where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.

How sad a sight is human happiness to those whose thoughts can pierce beyond an hour!

That is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great.

O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.

All those who suffer in the world do so because of their desire for their own happiness.

Human happiness never remains long in the same place.

One has to spend so many years in learning how to be happy.

Happiness (as the mathematicians might say) lies on a curve, and we approach it only by asymptote.

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.