Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. which give happiness. Thomas Jefferson We never enjoy perfect happiness; our most fortunate successes are mingled with sadness; some anxieties always perplex the reality of our satisfaction.
There are many objects of desire, and therefore many desires. Some are born with us, hunger, yearning, and pride of place, and some are of the foolishness of the world, such as the desire to eat off silver plates. Desire is a wild horse to be tamed. Virtue is habit long continued. The taming of desire is like the training of an athlete. Discipline is not the restraint but the use of energy.
It’s an odd thing, happiness. Some people take happiness from gold. Or black pearls. And some of us, far more fortunate, take their happiness from periwinkles.
There will always be a desire for something new, fresh and innovative, as well as a yearning and respect for timeless elegance and beauty.
The yearning after equality [in economic outcome] is the offspring of envy and covetousness, and there is no possible plan for satisfying that yearning which can do aught else than rob A to give to B; consequently all such plans nourish some of the meanest vices of human nature, waste capital, and overthrow civilization.
When one is overcome by this wretched, clinging desire in the world, one's sorrows increase like grass growing up after a lot of rain.
I'm just trying to enjoy the fact that I have gained some respect from some people whom I respect.
Desire is the strongest human emotion - desire for a hat, desire for a dress; that's what drives people to buy and want things.
[People] might have a different word for the yearning of the heart and the yearning of the spirit that is looking for what I call "God," it still is the same thing. It is the heart's yearning to know the origin of its mystery. It's a heart's yearning to know the power of the divine in each of our lives. It's a heart's yearning to be connected to that.
Happiness is the sense that one matters. Happiness is an abiding enthusiasm. Happiness is single-mindedness. Happiness is whole-heartedness. Happiness is a by-product. Happiness is faith.
I suppose I always find a lot of characters that are deeply, deeply keening with a sense of yearning and desire through sadness, but they have a bravery that keeps them going despite that.
There are few qualities more vital than a strong yearning. That desire to reach a little farther, to be a little more, yearning...for a piece of something greater, can often make all the difference.
Man's greatness is great in that he knows himself wretched. A tree does not know itself wretched. It is then being wretched to know oneself wretched; but it is being great to know that one is wretched.
There is no devious and dangerous life. I've lived a charmed life, especially in the last thirty years since I've started publishing. I've won the lottery. And I keep winning it every year and I am so fortunate to do something I thoroughly enjoy and still enjoy after a bunch of books.
The hour when you say, "What does my happiness matter? It is poverty and filth, and a wretched complacency. Yet my happiness should justify existence itself!
Prayer covers the whole of man's life. There is no thought, feeling, yearning, or desire, however low, trifling, or vulgar we may deem it, which if it affects our real interest or happiness, we may not lay before God and be sure of sympathy.