Great happiness is the fire ordeal of mankind, great misfortune only the trial by water; for the former opens a large extent of futurity, whereas the latter circumscribes or closes it.—Richter.
Prospective happiness is perhaps the only real happiness in the world.—Alfred de Musset.
Nature and individuals are generally best when they are happiest, and deserve heaven most when they have learnt rightly to enjoy it. Tears of sorrow are only pearls of inferior value, but tears of joy are pearls or diamonds of the first water.—Richter.
How many people I have seen who would have plucked cannon-balls out of the muzzles of guns with their bare hands, and yet had not courage enough to be happy.—Théophile Gautier.
All mankind are happier for having been happy, so that, if you make them happy now, you make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it.—Sydney Smith.
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.