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When all is said and done, the one sole condition that makes spiritual
happiness and preserves it is the absence of doubt. The perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy is to proportion
our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our capacities, we will
then be a happy and a virtuous people. Happy is he who forgets (ignores?) what cannot be changed. |
Illustration
of Mark Twain from the collection of |
Happiness ain't a thing in itself--it's only a contrast with something that
ain't pleasant.
- Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven
As soon as the novelty is over and the force of contrast dulled, it ain't happiness
any longer, and you have to get something fresh.
- Capain. Stormfield's Visit to Heaven
Every man is a suffering-machine and a happiness-machine combined. The two
functions work together harmoniously, with a fine and delicate precision, on
the give-and-take principle. For every happiness turned out in the one department
the other stands ready to modify it with a sorrow or a pain--maybe a dozen.
- The Mysterious Stranger
...as happy as a dog with two tails.
- quoted in The Adventures of Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass
Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.
- The Mysterious Stranger
No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what a fearful
thing it is. Only the mad can be happy, and not many of those.
- The Mysterious Stranger
Happiness is a Swedish sunset--it is there for all, but most of us look the
other way and lose it.
- Notebook, 1899
I am as uplifted and reassured by it as a mother who has given birth to a white
baby when she was awfully afraid it was going to be a mulatto.
- Letter to W. D. Howells, 1872 referring to reviews of The Innocents Abroad
There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one: keep from telling
their happinesses to the unhappy.
- Following the Equator, Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar
Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: the one promises happiness, doubtless
the other assures it.
- Letter to Will Bowen, 11/4/1888
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