Few things are needed to make a wise man happy; nothing can make a fool content; that is why most men are miserable.

"Flaubert tells us that three things are required for happiness: stupidity, selfishness, and good health. I am," he told Morgan, "an unhappy man -"

Comme la plus heureuse personne du monde est celle à qui peu de choses suffit, les grands et les ambitieux sont en ce point les plus misérables qu’il leur faut l’assemblage d’une infinité de biens pour les rendre heureux.

Nothing satisfies the man who is not satisfied with a little.

You see now how little nature requires, to be satisfied. Felicity, the companion of content, is rather found in our own breasts than in the enjoyment of external things, and I firmly believe it requires but a little philosophy to make a man happy in whatsoever state he is. This consists in a full resignation to the will of Providence, and a resigned soul finds pleasure in a path strewed with briers and thorns.

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?

A man who can take anything will find most things unsatisfying.

Human beings are so strangely constructed that they often find consolation and even happiness in misfortune (for instance, when ones is unjustly persecuted, the comfort of knowing that one deserves a better fate), but it far more happens that a man will be bored by prosperity and even think himself supremely miserable (19 July 1854).

I hear the philosophers opposing it and saying 'tis a miserable thing for a man to be foolish, to err, mistake, and know nothing truly. Nay rather, this is to be a man. And why they should call it miserable, I see no reason; forasmuch as we are so born, so bred, so instructed, nay such is the common condition of us all.

Amongst mortals no man is happy; wealth may pour in and make one luckier than another, but none can happy be.

Diversion. Sometimes, when I set to thinking the various activities of men, the dangers and troubles which they face at Court, or in war, giving rise to so many quarrels and passions, daring and often wicked enterprises and so on, I have often said the soul cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in a room. A man wealthy enough for life’s needs would never leave home to go to sea or besiege some fortress if he knew how to stay at home and enjoy it. (Page 32)

However sad a man may be, if you can persuade him to take up some diversion he will be happy while it lasts, and however happy a man may be, if he lacks diversion and has no absorbing passion or entertainment to keep boredom away, he will soon be depressed and unhappy. Without diversion there is no joy; with diversion there is no sadness. That is what constitutes the happiness of persons of rank, for they have a number of people to divert them and the ability to keep themselves in this state.

Yea, if a man possess all things he cannot be content, — the greater his possessions the less will be his contentment, for the heart cannot be satisfied with possessions, but rather in detachment from all things and in poverty of spirit.

A man who can take anything will find most things unsatisfying. And a man without memories is just a shell.