Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
It is the paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self.
There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.
Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.
We all have obstacles. The feeling of satisfaction comes by overcoming something.
Life finds its purpose and fulfillment in the expansion of happiness.
Genuine happiness can only be achieved when we transform our way of life from the unthinking pursuit of pleasure to one committed to enriching our inner lives, when we focus on 'being more' rather than simply having more.
If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.
Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat; the redeeming things are not happiness and pleasure but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle.
The gratification of desire is not happiness.
Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.