WIST Quotations

Chesterfield (Lord) -- Letter to his son, #298, enclosed maxims (15 Jan 1758)

Dave — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 23:59:37 +0000

A cheerful, easy countenance and behavior are very useful: they make fools think you a good-natured man, and they make designing men think you an undesigning one.

Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #298, enclosed maxims (15 Jan 1758)
(Source)

Labeled as letter #297 in the linked source, but #298 in the volume I am using as reference, which does not include the maxims.

Keller, Helen -- The Simplest Way to be Happy (1933)

Dave — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 12:30:24 +0000

A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.

Helen Keller (1880-1968) American author and lecturer
The Simplest Way to be Happy (1933)
(Source)

Keller, Helen -- “Optimism,” part 1 (1903)

Dave — Mon, 16 Feb 2015 14:30:31 +0000

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

Helen Keller (1880-1968) American author and lecturer
“Optimism,” part 1 (1903)
(Source)

Kant, Immanuel -- Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals [Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten] (1785)

Dave — Thu, 09 Jan 2014 13:37:24 +0000

Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals [Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten] (1785)

Kant, Immanuel -- Critique of Practical Reason [Kritik der praktischen Vernunft], 1.2.2.5 (1788) [tr. Abbott (1873)]

Dave — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 13:58:20 +0000

Morality is not properly the doctrine [of] how we should make ourselves happy, but how we should make ourselves worthy of happiness.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher
Critique of Practical Reason [Kritik der praktischen Vernunft], 1.2.2.5 (1788) [tr. Abbott (1873)]

Brilliant, Ashleigh -- Pot-Shots, #0398

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

All I ask is a chance to prove that money can’t make me happy.

Ashleigh Brilliant (b. 1933) Anglo-American epigramist, aphorist, cartoonist
Pot-Shots, #0398