All In Your Mind
Virtue and Vice
64. Happiness
"Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A
peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but
not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity
of agreeable consciousness. A peasant has not the capacity for
having equal happiness with a philosopher."
Boswell: Life
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222. Happiness; Life
"That man is never happy for the present is so true, that all his
relief from unhappiness is only forgetting himself for a little
while. Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment
to enjoyment."
Boswell: Life
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237. Happiness; Wealth
[Entering the estate of Lord Scarsdale, Boswell describes a long
list of assets indicating great wealth.] Boswell: "One
should think that the proprietor of all this must be
happy." Johnson: "Nay, Sir, all this excludes but one
evil -- poverty."
Boswell: Life
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251. Happiness; Taverns/Inns
"There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which
so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn."
Boswell: Life
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447. Envy; Happiness; Hope
"Envy is commonly reciprocal. We are long before we are
convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes
it possessed by others to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for
himself."
Johnson: Rasselas
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
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656. Happiness; Security
"To make any happiness sincere it is necessary that we believe it
to be lasting; since whatever we suppose ourselves in danger of
losing must be enjoyed with solicitude and uneasiness, and the
more value we set upon it, the more must the present possession
be imbittered."
Johnson: Rambler #53 (September 18, 1750)
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726. Complacency; Happiness
"He that is happy, by whatever means, desires nothing but the
continuance of happiness."
Johnson: Idler #18 (August 12, 1758)
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734. Happiness; Home; Humanity
"The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to those hours
which splendour cannot gild, and acclamation cannot exhilarate;
those soft intervals of unbended amusement, in which a man
shrinks to his natural dimensions, and throws aside the ornaments
or disguises which he feels in privacy to be useless
incumbrances, and to lose all effect when they become familiar.
To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the
end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which
every desire prompts the prosecution."
Johnson: Rambler #68 (November 10, 1750)
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901. Happiness; Relativity
"Our sense of delight is in a great measure comparative, and
arises at once from the sensations which we feel, and those which
we remember: thus ease after torment is pleasure for a time, and
we are very agreeably recreated when the body, chilled with the
weather, is gradually recovering its tepidity; but the joy
ceases when we have forgot the cold; we must fall below ease
again if we desire to rise above it, and purchase new felicity by
voluntary pain."
Johnson: Rambler #80 (December 22, 1750)
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963. Advice; Goodness; Happiness;
Life
"Little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every man
could conform to the right as soon as he was shown it."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
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1,246. Gratitude; Happiness
"The good of our present state is merely comparative, and the
evil which every man feels will be sufficient to disturb and
harass him if he does not know how much he escapes."
Johnson: Rambler #150 (August 24, 1751)
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1,292. Happiness; Humanity
"Human happiness has always its abatements; the brightest
sunshine of success is not without a cloud."
Johnson: Addison (Lives of the Poets)
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1,457. Happiness; Life; Old Age;
Youth
"Such is the condition of life that something is always wanting
to happiness. In youth we have warm hopes, which are soon
blasted by rashness and negligence, and great designs which are
defeated by inexperience. In age, we have knowledge and
prudence, without spirit to exert, or motives to prompt them; we
are able to plan schemes, and regulate measures, but have not
time remaining to bring them to completion."
Johnson: Rambler #196 (February 1, 1752)
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1,468. Happiness; Satisfaction
"The fountain of content must spring up
in the mind; and ... he,
who has so little knowledge of human nature, as to seek happiness
by changing any thing, but his own dispositions, will waste his
life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he
purposes to remove."
Johnson: Rambler #6 (April 7, 1750)
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1,470. Happiness; Hope; Memory;
Satisfaction
"It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in
futurity. The time present is seldom able to fill desire or
imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply
its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation."
Johnson: Rambler #203 (February 25, 1752)
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1,474. Happiness; Life;
Mortality
"Every period of life is obliged to borrow its happiness from the
time to come. In youth we have nothing to entertain us, and in
age we derive little from retrospect but hopeless sorrow. Yet
the future likewise has its limits, which the imagination dreads
to approach, but which we see to be not far distant. The loss of
our friends and companions impresses hourly upon the necessity of
our own departure; we know that the schemes of man are quickly at
an end, that we soon must lie down in the grave with the
forgotten multitudes of former ages, and yield our place to
others, who, like us, shall be driven a while by hope and fear
about the surface of the earth, and then like us be lost in the
shades of death. Beyond this termination of our material
existence, we are therefore obliged to extend our hopes..."
Johnson: Rambler #203 (February 25, 1752)
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1,536. Happiness
Happiness is enjoyed only in proportion as it is known; and such
is the state or folly of man, that it is known only by experience
of its contrary.
Johnson: Adventurer #67 (June 26, 1753)
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1,595. Desires; Happiness
"It deserves to be considered, whether the want of that which can
never be gained, may not easily be endured."
Johnson: Adventurer #111 (November 27, 1753)
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1,602. Desire; Happiness
"Every man may grow rich by contracting his wishes, and by quiet
acquiescence in what has been given him, supply the absence of
more."
Johnson: Adventurer #119 (December 25, 1753)
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1,632. Appearance; Desires; Happiness;
Poverty
"The species of happiness most obvious to the observation of
others, is that which depends upon the goods of fortune; yet even
this is often fictitious. There is in the world more poverty
than is generally imagined; not only because many whose
possessions are large have desires still larger, and many measure
their wants by the gratifications which others enjoy: but great
numbers are pressed by real necessities which it is their chief
ambition to conceal, and are forced to purchase the appearance of
competence and cheerfulness at the expence of many comforts and
conveniencies of life."
Johnson: Adventurer #120 (December 29, 1753)
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1,775. Happiness; Satisfaction;
Wealth
"no sooner do we sit down to enjoy our acquisitions, than we find
them insufficient to fill up the vacuities of life."
Johnson: Idler #73 (September 8, 1759)
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1,835. Happiness; Life
"That kind of life is most happy which affords us most
opportunities of gaining our own esteem."
Johnson: Adventurer #111 (November 27, 1753)
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1,837. Happiness; Progress;
Waste
"It is common to overlook what is near, by keeping the eye fixed
upon something remote. In the same manner, present opportunities
are neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied
in extensive ranges, and intent upon future advantages. Life,
however short, is made still shorter by waste of time; and its
progress towards happiness, though naturally slow, is yet
retarded by unnecessary labour."
Johnson: Idler #91 (January 12, 1760)
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1,859. Happiness
"Terrestrial happiness is of short continuance. The brightness of
the flame is wasting its fuel; the fragrant flower is passing
away in its own odours."
Johnson: Idler #101 (March 22, 1760)
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