#happines

The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#happiness #health #safety #scope-of-government #purpose

To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness - though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless. ↗

— Julian Barnes

#stupidity #stupidity

But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.' 'In fact,' said Mustapha Mond, 'you're claiming the right to be unhappy.' 'All right then,' said the Savage defiantly, 'I'm claiming the right to be unhappy.' 'Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.' There was a long silence. 'I claim them all,' said the Savage at last. Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. "You're welcome," he said. ↗

— Aldous Huxley

#freedom #happiness #rights #unhappiness #freedom

What is more cheerful, now, in the fall of the year, than an open-wood-fire? Do you hear those little chirps and twitters coming out of that piece of apple-wood? Those are the ghosts of the robins and blue-birds that sang upon the bough when it was in blossom last Spring. In Summer whole flocks of them come fluttering about the fruit-trees under the window: so I have singing birds all the year round. ↗

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

#happiness #imagery #seasons #twitter

Name one hero who was happy." I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back. "You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward. "I can't." "I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret." "Tell me." I loved it when he was like this. "I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it." "Why me?" "Because you're the reason. Swear it." "I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes. "I swear it," he echoed. We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned. "I feel like I could eat the world raw. ↗

— Madeline Miller

#happiness #heroes #love #mythology #oaths

Happiness is the best revenge ↗

— Jacki Kane

#revenge

Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself—and there isn’t one. ↗

— Wei Wu Wei

#happiness #buddhism

I don’t think man was meant to attain happiness so easily. Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it. ↗

— Alexandre Dumas

#wisdom #fairy-tales

They seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods ↗

— Edith Wharton

#happiness #romance #romance-novels

Because minds do blow and hearts do break. Those are not just sayings. And wolves and roaches are not the only creatures that chew off their legs to get out of traps—human beings do that, too. ↗

— Robin Silverman

#hearts #mental-health #minds #sadness #mental-health