Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.

Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.

Of course it does. Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.

The happiness which is lacking makes one think even the happiness one has unbearable.

Would I have been happier? Maybe. But then, happiness was overrated.

Consolation for unhappiness can often be found in a certain satisfaction we get from looking unhappy

No, the opposite of happiness is hopelessness, an endless gray horizon of resignation and indifference.3 It’s the belief that everything is fucked, so why do anything at all?

The happier people can be, the unhappier they are.

Everybody strains after happiness, and the result is that nobody's happy.

She's one of those people who flinch from the very idea of happiness — in her mind nothing could be more boring or bourgeois.

Our idea of happiness may be the very thing that’s preventing us from being happy.

Happiness is in the imagination. What we perform is always inferior to what we imagine.

We never taste a perfect joy;
Our happiest successes are mixed with sadness.

Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.