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

What thing so good which not some harm may bring?
Even to be happy is a dangerous thing.

It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.

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

The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.

It is a dangerous thing to be satisfied with ourselves.

my original view was closest to Aristotle’s — that everything we do is done in order to make us happy — but I actually detest the word happiness, which is so overused that it has become almost meaningless. It is an unworkable term for science, or for any practical goal such as education, therapy, public policy, or just changing your personal life.

The happier people can be, the unhappier they are.

It is a sad thing to want for happiness, but it is a terrible thing to see another groping about blindly for it, when it is almost within the grasp.

The desire to feel happy or think positively all the time hinders many people's authentic existence. It lowers resilience.

I think I'm afraid of being happy because whenever I get too happy something bad always happens.

The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual,
only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else.

Oh, how unbearable is a happy person sometimes!

The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.