SECTION 9. To be self-sufficient, to be all in all to oneself, to
want for nothing, to be able to say omnia mea mecum porto—that is assuredly the chief qualification for happiness. Hence Aristotle's remark, [Greek: hae eudaimonia ton autarchon esti][14]—to be happy means to be self-sufficient—cannot be too often repeated. It is, at bottom, the same thought as is present in the very well-turned sentence from Chamfort:
Le bonheur n'est pas chose aisée: il est très difficile de le trouver en nous, et impossible de le trouver ailleurs.
14 ([a]return])
[ Eudem. Eth. VII. ii. 37.]
For while a man cannot reckon with certainty upon anyone but himself, the burdens and disadvantages, the dangers and annoyances, which arise from having to do with others, are not only countless but unavoidable.
There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life: for the whole object of it is to transform our miserable existence into a succession of joys, delights and pleasures,—a process which cannot fail to result in disappointment and delusion; on a par, in this respect, with its obligato accompaniment, the interchange of lies.[15]