How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do.

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

A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.

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

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

There will always be a lost dog somewhere that will prevent me from being happy.

Happiness, whether in business or private life, leaves very little trace in history.

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

There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness.

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

Happiness is no laughing matter.