“A string of excited, fugitive, miscellaneous pleasures is not happiness; happiness resides in imaginative reflection and judgment, when the picture of one’s life, or of human life, as it truly has been or is, satisfies the will, and is gladly accepted.”

“When life gives you pain, accept it. When life gives you happiness, reject it.”

“Life has a definite purpose: to have one’s darkness of mind dispelled, and so achieve never-ending happiness.”

“There is a good life. The goodnews is that you can live that good life. The good life is the happy life. To live this good life, be happy! A truly happy man is a good man.”

“I believe I know the only cure, which is to make one’s center of life inside of one’s self, not selfishly or excludingly, but with a kind of unassailable serenity—to decorate one’s inner house so richly that one is content there, glad to welcome anyone who wants to come and stay, but happy all the same when one is inevitably alone.”

“If there was one thing that life has taught me, it’s to accept the most foolish and unthinkable happiness.”