Le plus heureux des hommes serait celui qui, possédant la science de son labeur, et travaillant de ses mains, puisant le bien-être et la liberté dans l'exercice de sa force intelligente, aurait le temps de vivre par le cur et par le cerveau, de comprendre son uvre et d'aimer celle de Dieu.

No man whose vision is bounded by colour can come into contact with what is highest and best in the world. In meeting men, in many places, I have found that the happiest people are those who do the most for others; the most miserable are those who do the least. I have also found that few things, if any, are capable of making one so blind and narrow as race prejudice.

Happiest are the people who give most happiness to others

happy the man who is vain enough never to praise himself, who fears his audience, and never compromises his own worth by ruffling the pride of others.

Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.

The happiest people are those who do the most for others. The most miserable are those who do the least.

the happiest people, the ones who have successfully purified their minds of all conditioning and craving, tend to have such a strong compassion and understanding of love that their lives naturally focus on giving to others. in this giving and clarity of mind they find happiness.

A learned society of our day, no doubt with the loftiest of intentions, has proposed the question, “Which people, in history, might have been the happiest?” If I properly understand the question, and if it is not altogether beyond the scope of a human answer, I can think of nothing to say except that at a certain time and under certain circumstances every people must have experienced such a moment or else it never was [a people]. Then again, human nature is no vessel for an absolute, independent, immutable happiness, as defined by the philosopher; rather, she everywhere draws as much happiness towards herself as she can: a supple clay that will conform to the most different situations, needs, and depressions. Even the image of happiness changes with every condition and location (for what is it ever but the sum of “the satisfaction of desire, the fulfillment of purpose, and the gentle overcoming of needs,” all of which are shaped by land, time, and place?). Basically, then, all comparison becomes futile. As soon as the inner meaning of happiness, the inclination has changed; as soon as external opportunities and needs develop and solidify the other meaning — who could compare the different satisfaction of different meanings in different worlds? Who could compare the shepherd and father of the Orient, the ploughman and the artisan, the seaman, runner, conqueror of the world? It is not the laurel wreath that matters, nor the sight of the blessed flock, neither the merchant vessels nor the conquered armies’ standards — but the soul that needed this, strove for it, finally attained it and wanted to attain nothing else. Every nation has its center of happiness within itself, as every ball has its center of gravity!

A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy.

It is not merriment and wantonness, nor laughter or jesting, the comrade of frivolity, that make men happy; those are happy, often in sadness, whose wills are strong and true.

The happiest people I have known have been those who gave themselves no concern about their own souls, but did their uttermost to mitigate the miseries of others.

I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity, and I am more invulnerable than Archilles; Fortune hath not one place to hit me.

The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship

Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby