Man is never always happy, and very often only a brief period of happiness is granted him in this world; so why escape from this dream which cannot last long?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man's happiness really lies in contentment.
Humanity needs dreams to be able to survive the miseries of daily existence, even if only for an instant.
Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.
Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.
Happiness lies so far from man, but he must begin by daring to will it.
Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable - and life is more than a dream.
Man's real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.
The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.
Happiness consumes itself like a flame. It cannot burn for ever, it must go out, and the presentiment of its end destroys it at its very peak.
Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.