A Quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Quote Topics

Happiness Happy Like Others Possessing Taste Themselves Things

Quote Author

Francois de La Rochefoucauld
French - Writer
September 15, 1613 - March 17, 1680

What is it about possessing things? Why do we feel the need to own what we love, and why do we become jerks when we do? We've all been there- you want something, to possess it. By possessing something you lose it. You finally win the girl of your dreams, the first thing you do is change her. The little things she does with her hair, the way she wears her clothes or the way she chews her gum. Pretty soon what you like, what you changed, what you don't like, blends together like a watercolor in the rain.

Jeff Melvoin

The goods of Fortune, even such as they really are, still need taste to enjoy them. It is the enjoying no the possessing, that makes us happy.

Michelangelo

Guns in America have an atavistic force. Possessing them, or the act of not possessing them, is an identity that seems to pass from father to son.

Michael Wolff

Possessing things is not that interesting. Living in a grand environment to show myself and others that I have wealth has zero appeal.

Nicolas Berggruen

Happiness consists not of having, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is a warm glow of the heart at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may have happiness that a king on his throne might envy. Man is the creator of his own happiness. It is the aroma of life, lived in harmony with high ideals. For what a man has he may be dependent upon others; what he is rests with him alone.

David O. McKay

Ordinarily, even when people become religious, they go on thinking in terms of having - possessing heaven or possessing the pleasures of heaven - but still they go on thinking in terms of having. Their heaven is nothing but their projected desire of having everything. All that they have missed here they would like to have in the after-life. But it is the same desire.

Rajneesh

Happiness is found in doing, not merely possessing.

Napoleon Hill

No one worth possessing Can be quite possessed; Lay that on your heart, My young angry dear; This truth, this hard and precious stone, Lay it on your hot cheek, Let it hide your tear. Hold it like a crystal When you are alone And gaze in the depths of the icy stone. Long, look long and you will be blessed: No one worth possessing Can be quite possessed.

Sara Teasdale

Possessing material comforts in no way guarantees happiness. Only spiritual wealth can bring true true happiness.

Konosuke Matsushita

I do not want horses or diamonds - I am happy in possessing you.

Clara Schumann

The oppressors do not perceive their monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanizes others and themselves. They cannot see that, in the egoistic pursuit of having as a possessing class, they suffocate in their own possessions and no longer are; they merely have.

Paulo Freire

How could people like these, without words to put to their emotions and passions, manage? They could, at best, only suffer dumbly. Their pains and humiliations would work themselves out in their characters alone: like evil spirits possessing a body, so that the body itself might appear innocent of what it did.