Part 42

We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.--Lamotte.

I have now reigned above fifty years in victory or peace, beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: they amount to fourteen. O man, place not thy confidence in this present world!--The Caliph Abdalrahman.

If I may speak of myself (the only person of whom I can speak with certainty), my happy hours have far exceeded, and far exceed, the scanty numbers of the caliph of Spain; and I shall not scruple to add that many of them are due to the pleasing labor of the present composition.--Gibbon.

For which we bear to live, or dare to die.--Pope.

We buy wisdom with happiness, and who would purchase it at such a price? To be happy we must forget the past, and think not of the future; and who that has a soul or mind can do this? No one; and this proves that those who have either know no happiness on this earth. Memory precludes happiness, whatever Rogers may say or write to the contrary, for it borrows from the past to embitter the present, bringing back to us all the grief that has most wounded, or the happiness that has most charmed us.--Byron.

The happiness you wot of is not a hundredth part of what you enjoy.--Charles Buxton.

Every human soul has the germ of some flowers within; and they would open if they could only find sunshine and free air to expand in. I always told you that not having enough of sunshine was what ailed the world. Make people happy, and there will not be half the quarreling, or a tenth part of the wickedness there is.--Mrs. L. M. Child.

Comparison, more than reality, makes men happy, and can make them wretched.--Feltham.

Happiness and misery are the names of two extremes, the utmost bounds whereof we know not.--Locke.

There comes forever something between us and what we deem our happiness.--Byron.

Philosophical happiness is to want little; civil or vulgar happiness is to want much, and to enjoy much.--Burke.

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

Plenteous joys, wanton in fullness.--Shakespeare.

Happiness is always the inaccessible castle which sinks in ruin when we set foot on it.--Arsène Houssaye.

For ages happiness has been represented as a huge precious stone, impossible to find, which people seek for hopelessly. It is not so; happiness is a mosaic, composed of a thousand little stones, which separately and of themselves have little value, but which united with art form a graceful design.--Mme. de Girardin.

The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.--George Eliot.

The way to bliss lies not on beds of down.--Quarles.

The use we make of happiness gives us an eternal sentiment of satisfaction or repentance.--Rousseau.

Happiness is where we find it, but rarely where we seek it.--J. Petit Senn.

In regard to the affairs of mortals, there is nothing happy throughout.--Euripides.

~Hardship.~--The beginning of hardship is like the first taste of bitter food,--it seems for a moment unbearable; yet, if there is nothing else to satisfy our hunger, we take another bite and find it possible to go on.--George Eliot.

~Haste.~--Let your haste commend your duty.--Shakespeare.

The more haste ever the worst speed.--Churchill.

Hurry and cunning are the two apprentices of dispatch and skill; but neither of them ever learn their master's trade.--Colton.

All haste implies weakness.--George MacDonald.

~Hatred.~--We hate some persons because we do not know them; and we will not know them because we hate them.--Colton.

Were one to ask me in which direction I think man strongest, I should say, his capacity to hate.--Beecher.

Love is rarely a hypocrite. But hate! how detect, and how guard against it. It lurks where you least expect it; it is created by causes that you can the least foresee; and civilization multiplies its varieties whilst it favors its disguise; for civilization increases the number of contending interests, and refinement renders more susceptible to the least irritation the cuticle of self-love.--Bulwer-Lytton.