The Pleasures of Life quotes

… if our teachers would dwell on the Duty of Happiness as well as on the Happiness of Duty, for we ought to be as cheerful as we can, if only because to be happy ourselves, is a most effectual contribution to the happiness of others.

Every one must have felt that a cheerful friend is like a sunny day, which sheds its brightness on all around; and most of us can, as we choose, make of this world either a palace or a prison.

There is no doubt some selfish satisfaction in yielding to melancholy, and fancying that we are victims of fate; in brooding over grievances, especially if more or less imaginary. To be bright and cheerful often requires an effort;

But ought we not to place before ourselves a very different ideal—a healthier, manlier, and nobler hope?

Life is not to live merely, but to live well.

There are some "who live without any design at all, and only pass in the world like straws on a river: they do not go;

"Im Ganzen, Guten, Schönen Resolut zu leben."

Life indeed must be measured by thought and action, not by time.

It certainly may be, and ought to be, bright, interesting, and happy; and, according to the Italian proverb, "if all cannot live on the Piazza, every one may feel the sun."

Much of what we suffer we have brought on ourselves, if not by actual fault, at least by ignorance or thoughtlessness. Too often we think only of the happiness of the moment, and sacrifice that of the life.

Troubles comparatively seldom come to us, it is we who go to them.

Many of us fritter our life away. La Bruyère says that "most men spend much of their lives in making the rest miserable;" or, as Goethe puts it:

To save ourselves from imaginary, or at any rate problematical, evils, we often incur real suffering.

"The man," said Epicurus, "who is not content with little is content with nothing."

How often do we "labor for that which satisfieth not." More than we use is more than we need, and only a burden to the bearer. [16] We most of us give ourselves an immense amount of useless trouble;

Comfort and consolation, refreshment and happiness, may indeed be found in his library by any one "who shall bring the golden key that unlocks its silent door." [4]

A library is true fairyland, a very palace of delight, a haven of repose from the storms and troubles of the world.

Rich and poor can enjoy it equally, for here, at least, wealth gives no advantage. We may make a library, if we do but rightly use it, a true paradise on earth, a garden of Eden without its one drawback;

they will buy a novel at a railway-stall if it has an attractive title; indeed, I believe in some cases even the binding affects their choice. The selection is, no doubt, far from easy.

I have often wished some one would recommend a list of a hundred good books. If we had such lists drawn up by a few good guides they would be most useful. I have indeed sometimes heard it said that in reading every one must choose for himself, but this reminds me of the recommendation not to go into the water till you can swim.

In the absence of such lists I have picked out the books most frequently mentioned with approval by those who have referred directly or indirectly to the pleasure of reading, and have ventured to include some which, though less frequently mentioned, are especial favorites of …

If, then, we choose our friends for what they are, not for what they have, and if we deserve so great a blessing, then they will be always with us, preserved in absence, and even after death, in the "amber of memory."

Each day is a little life.

All other good gifts depend on time for their value. What are friends, books, or health, the interest of travel or the delights of home, if we have not time for their enjoyment?

All other good gifts depend on time for their value. What are friends, books, or health, the interest of travel or the delights of home, if we have not time for their enjoyment?

Time is often said to be money, but it is more-it is life; and yet many who would cling desperately to life, think nothing of wasting time.

Ask of the wise, says Schiller in Lord Sherbrooke's translation,

Suffering may be unavoidable, but no one has any excuse for being dull.

And yet some people are dull. They talk of a better world to come, while whatever dulness there may be here is all their own. Sir Arthur Helps has well said: "What!

Surely no one who has the opportunity should omit to travel.

The world belongs to him who has seen it.

"But he that would make his travels delightful must first make himself delightful." [1]

But also we know to our cost that he never overlooks a mistake or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity which with the strong shows delight in strength.

And one who plays ill is checkmated—without haste, but without remorse.

"

We ought to follow exactly the opposite course with children—to give them a wholesome variety of mental food, and endeavor to cultivate their tastes, rather than to fill their minds with dry facts.

The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.

What does it matter if the pupil know a little more or a little less? A boy who leaves school knowing much, but hating his lessons, will soon have forgotten almost all he ever learned;

Another point in which I venture to think that our system of education might be amended, is that it tends at present to give the impression that everything is known.

Dr. Busby is said to have kept his hat on in the presence of King Charles, that the boys might see what a great man he was. I doubt, however, whether the boys were deceived by the hat; and am very skeptical about Dr. Busby's theory of education.

Master John of Basingstoke, who was Archdeacon of Leicester in 1252, learned Greek during a visit to Athens, from Constantina, daughter of the Archbishop of Athens, and used to say afterwards that though he had studied well and diligently at the University of Paris, yet …

But this is not the place to discuss the subject of religious or moral training, or the system of apportioning the grant.

If we succeed in giving the love of learning, the learning itself is sure to follow.

We should therefore endeavor to educate our children so that every country walk may be a pleasure; that the discoveries of science may be a living interest; that our national history and poetry may be sources of legitimate pride and rational enjoyment.

But this is scarcely true. All succeed who deserve, though not perhaps as they hoped. An honorable defeat is better than a mean victory, and no one is really the worse for being beaten, unless he loses heart.

Though we may not be able to attain, that is no reason why we should not aspire.

"How far high failure overleaps the bound Of low successes."

But this is scarcely true. All succeed who deserve, though not perhaps as they hoped.

An honorable defeat is better than a mean victory, and no one is really the worse for being beaten, unless he loses heart.

Though we may not be able to attain, that is no reason why we should not aspire.

Wordsworth deprecates monuments to Poets, with some exceptions, on this very account. The case of Statesmen, he says, is different. It is right to commemorate them because they might otherwise be forgotten; but Poets live in their books forever.

The real conquerors of the world indeed are not the generals but the thinkers

; not Genghis Khan and Akbar, Rameses, or Alexander, but Confucius and Buddha, Aristotle, Plato, and Christ.

If life has been sacrificed to the rolling up of money for its own sake, the very means by which it was acquired will prevent its being enjoyed; the chill of poverty will have entered into the very bones.

The term Miser was happily chosen for such persons; they are essentially miserable.

"A collector peeps into all the picture shops of Europe for a landscape of Poussin, a crayon sketch of Salvator; but the Transfiguration, the Last Judgment, the Communion of St.

The sea-coast has, moreover, two great advantages. In the first place, it is for the most part but little interfered with by man, and in the second it exhibits most instructively the forces of Nature.

We are all great landed proprietors, if we only knew it.

What we lack is not land, but the power to enjoy it. Moreover, this great inheritance has the additional advantage that it entails no labor, requires no management.

Even as regards the payment we find very different systems. The Chinese pay their medical man as long as they are well, and stop his salary as soon as they are ill.

In ancient Egypt we are told that the patient feed the Doctor for the first few days, after which the Doctor paid the patient until he made him well. This is a fascinating system, but might afford too much temptation to heroic remedies.

On the whole our plan seems the best, though it does not offer adequate encouragement to discovery and research. We do not appreciate how much we owe to the discoveries of such men as Hunter and Jenner, Simpson and Lister.

Pope spoke of that long disease, his life. Many indeed may say, "I suffer, therefore I am." But happily these cases are exceptional. Most of us might be well, if we would. It is very much our own fault that we are ill.

We do those things which we ought not to do, and we leave undone those things which we ought to have done, and then we wonder there is no health in us.

We all know that we can make ourselves ill, but few perhaps realize how much we can do to keep ourselves well. Much of our suffering is self-inflicted.

Dyspepsia, for instance, from which so many suffer, is in nine cases out of ten their own fault, and arises from the combination of too much food with too little exercise. To lengthen your life, says an old proverb, shorten your meals.

Plain living and high thinking will secure health for most of us, though it matters, perhaps, comparatively little what a healthy man eats, so long as he does not eat too much.

Mr. Gladstone has told us that the splendid health he enjoys is greatly due to his having early learnt one simple physiological maxim, and laid it down as a rule for himself always to make twenty-five bites at every bit of meat.

And yet even if we were to consider merely the pleasure to be derived from eating and drinking, the same rule would hold good.

A lunch of bread and cheese after a good walk is more enjoyable than a Lord Mayor's feast.

Without wishing, like Apicius, for the neck of a stork, so that he might enjoy his dinner longer, we must not be ungrateful for the enjoyment we derive from eating and drinking, even though they be amongst the least aesthetic of our pleasures.

Laughter appears to be the special prerogative of man. The higher animals present us with proof of evident, if not highly developed reasoning power, but it is more than doubtful whether they are capable of appreciating a joke.

Wit, moreover, has solved many difficulties and decided many controversies.

"Ridicule shall frequently prevail, And cut the knot when graver reasons fail." [4]

A careless song, says Walpole, with a little nonsense in it now and then, does not misbecome a monarch, but it is difficult now to realize that James I. should have regarded skill in punning in his selections of bishops and privy councillors.

The most wasted of all days, says Chamfort, is that on which one has not laughed.

It is, moreover, no small merit of laughter that it is quite spontaneous. "You cannot force people to laugh; you cannot give a reason why they should laugh; they must laugh of themselves or not at all….

when you are once out of doors the touch of earth and the breath of the fresh air gives you fresh life and energy.

Men, like trees, live in great part on air.

After a gallop over the downs, a row on the river, a sea voyage, a walk by the seashore or in the woods

"Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below and saints above; For love is heaven and heaven is love."

Love is the light and sunshine of life.

We are so constituted that we cannot fully enjoy ourselves, or anything else, unless some one we love enjoys it with us. Even if we are alone, we store up our enjoyment in hope of sharing it hereafter with those we love.

However this may be, there is such instinctive insight in the human heart that we often form our opinion almost instantaneously, and such impressions seldom change, I might even say, they are seldom wrong.

Love at first sight sounds like an imprudence, and yet is almost a revelation.

It seems as if we were but renewing the relations of a previous existence.

Love and Reason divide the life of man. We must give to each its due.

If it is impossible to attain to virtue by the aid of Reason without Love, neither can we do so by means of Love alone without Reason.

Love, said Melanippides, "sowing in the heart of man the sweet harvest of desire, mixes the sweetest and most beautiful things together."

Hearts that the world in vain had tried, And sorrow but more closely tied, That stood the storm, when waves were rough, Yet in a sunny hour fall off, Like ships that have gone down at sea, When heaven was all tranquillity." [15]

For love is brittle.

Do not risk even any little jar; it may be

but every woman may feel as she improves herself that she is not only laying in a store of happiness for herself, but also raising and blessing him whom she would most wish to see happy and good.

Love, true love, grows and deepens with time.

Husband and wife, who are married indeed, live

Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind.

As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.

"In true Art," says Ruskin, "the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together. But Art is no recreation: it cannot be learned at spare moments, nor pursued when we have nothing better to do."

Study and labor cannot make every man an artist, but no one can succeed in art without them.

In Art two and two do not make four, and no number of little things will make a great one.

It has been said, and on high authority, that the end of art is to please. But this is a very imperfect definition. It might as well be said that a library is only intended for pleasure and ornament.

A drawing, then, which was literally exact would not be true, in the sense of conveying the same impression as Nature herself.

In fact, Art, says Goethe, is called Art simply because it is not Nature.

It is not sufficient for the artist to choose beautiful scenery, and delineate it with accuracy. He must not be a mere copyist. Something higher and more subtle is required. He must create, or at any rate interpret, as well as copy.

It is not sufficient for the artist to choose beautiful scenery, and delineate it with accuracy. He must not be a mere copyist. Something higher and more subtle is required. He must create, or at any rate interpret, as well as copy.

Turner was never satisfied merely to reach to even the most glorious scenery. He moved, and even suppressed, mountains.

A certain nobleman, we are told, was very anxious to see the model from whom Guido painted his lovely female faces. Guido placed his color-grinder, a big coarse man, in an attitude, and then drew a beautiful Magdalen.

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Madame de Staël declared, that though she would go 500 leagues to meet a clever man, she would not care to open her window to see the Bay of Naples.

Nor was the ancient absence of appreciation confined to scenery. Even Burke, speaking of Stonehenge, says, "Stonehenge, neither for disposition nor ornament, has anything admirable."

Ugly scenery, however, may in some cases have an injurious effect on the human system.

It has been ingeniously suggested that what really drove Don Quixote out of his mind was not the study of his books of chivalry, so much as the monotonous scenery of La Mancha.

The love of landscape is not indeed due to Art alone. It has been the happy combination of art and science which has trained us to perceive the beauty which surrounds us.

With words, Poetry can paint and sculpture; she can build edifices like an architect; she unites, to some extent, melody and music. She is, so to say, the center in which all arts unite."

A true poem is a gallery of pictures.

It must, I think, be admitted that painting and sculpture can give us a clearer and more vivid idea of an object we have never seen than any description can convey.

But when we have once seen it, then on the contrary there are many points which the poet brings before us, and which perhaps neither in the representation, nor even in nature, should we perceive for ourselves.

Objects can be most vividly brought before us by the artist, actions by the poet; space is the domain of Art, time of Poetry.

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"Mediocribus esse poetis Non homines, non Di, non concessere columnae." [4]

Second-rate poets, like second-rate writers generally, fade gradually into dreamland; but the great poets remain always.

Poetry will not live unless it be alive, "that which comes from the head goes to the heart;"

"it purges from our inward sight the film of familiarity which obscures from us the wonder of our being;" "it is the center and circumference of knowledge;" and poets are "mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity caste upon the present."

Poetry, in effect, lengthens life; it creates for us time, if time be realized as the succession of ideas and not of minutes

; it is the "breath and finer spirit of all knowledge;" it is bound neither by time nor space, but lives in the spirit of man. What greater praise can be given than the saying that life should be Poetry put into action.

but there are some notable exceptions.

Dr. Johnson had no love of music. On one occasion, hearing that a certain piece of music was very difficult, he expressed his regret that it was not impossible.

Poets, as might have been expected, have sung most sweetly in praise of song. They have, moreover, done so from the most opposite points of view.

But it would, I think, be easier to enumerate the Wonders of Nature for which description can prepare us, than those which are altogether beyond the power of language.

Many of us, however, walk through the world like ghosts, as if we were in it, but not of it.

We have "eyes and see not, ears and hear not." To look is much less easy than to overlook, and to be able to see what we do see, is a great gift.

Many of us, however, walk through the world like ghosts, as if we were in it, but not of it. We have "eyes and see not, ears and hear not."

To look is much less easy than to overlook, and to be able to see what we do see, is a great gift.

Ruskin maintains that "The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way."

It seems to vivify the very atmosphere, so that Sea air is proverbial as a tonic, and makes the blood dance in our veins. The Ocean gives an impression of freedom and grandeur more intense perhaps than the aspect of the heavens themselves.

A poor woman from Manchester, on being taken to the seaside, is said to have expressed her delight on seeing for the first time something of which there was enough for everybody.

The sea coast is always interesting. When we think of the cliff sections with their histories of bygone ages; the shore itself teeming with seaweeds and animals, waiting for the return of the tide, or thrown up from deeper water by the waves;

To water again we owe the marvellous spectacle of the rainbow—"God's bow in the clouds." It is indeed truly a heavenly messenger, and so unlike anything else that it scarcely seems to belong to this world.

Many things are colored, but the rainbow seems to be color itself.

"First the flaming red Sprang vivid forth; the tawny orange next, And next delicious yellow; by whose side Fell the kind beams of all-refreshing green. Then the pure blue that swells autumnal skies, Ethereal play'd;

if we face them boldly, we find that they have no substance or reality, but are mere creations of our own morbid imagination, and that it is as true now as in the time of David that "Man disquieteth himself in a vain shadow."

Some, indeed, of our troubles are evils, but not real; while others are real, but not evils.

"And yet, into how unfathomable a gulf the mind rushes when the troubles of this world agitate it.

We are all apt, when we know not what may happen, to fear the worst.

When we know the full extent of any danger, it is half over.

Hence, we dread ghosts more than robbers, not only without reason, but against reason; for even if ghosts existed, how could they hurt us?

nay, it were better to meet some dangers half way, though they come nothing near, than to keep too long a watch upon their approaches; for if a man watch too long, it is odds he will fall asleep." [5]

Foresight is very wise, but foresorrow is very foolish; and castles are at any rate better than dungeons, in the air.

Some of our troubles, no doubt, are real enough, but yet are not evils.

no wave Of mortal tumult to obliterate The soul's marmoreal calmness: Grief shall be Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate; Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free; Strong to consume small troubles; to commend Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end." [8]

Some persons are like the waters of Siloam, and require to be troubled before they can exercise their virtue.

"We shall get more contentedness," says Plutarch, "from the presence of all these blessings if we fancy them as absent, and remember from time to time how people when ill yearn for health, and people in war for peace, and strangers and unknown in a …

We all know how quickly time passes when we are well employed, while the moments hang heavily on the hands of the idle. Occupation drives away care and all the small troubles of life.

The busy man has no time to brood or to fret.

"From toil he wins his spirits light, From busy day the peaceful night; Rich, from the very want of wealth, In Heaven's best treasures, peace and health." [1]

We all admit, though we often forget, the marvellous power of perseverance, and yet all Nature, down to Bruce's spider, is continually impressing this lesson on us.

Hard writing, it has been said, makes easy reading

; Plato is said to have rewritten the first page of the Republic thirteen times; and Carlo Maratti, we are told, sketched the head of Antinoüs three hundred times before he wrought it to his satisfaction.

Hard writing, it has been said, makes easy reading; Plato is said to have rewritten the first page of the Republic thirteen times; and Carlo Maratti, we are told, sketched the head of Antinoüs three hundred times before he wrought it to his satisfaction.

It is better to wear out than to rust out

, and there is "a dust which settles on the heart, as well as that which rests upon the ledge." [2]

no matter how often defeated, you are born to victory.

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.

" [4]

The power of work has especially characterized our greatest men.

Cecil said of Sir W. Raleigh that he "could toil terribly."

We are most of us proud of belonging to the greatest Empire the world has ever seen. It may be said of us with especial truth in Wordsworth's words that

and in the days of the Inquisition many must have sighed for the cheerful child-like religion of the Greeks, if they could but have had the Nymphs and Nereids, the Fays and Faeries, with Destiny and Fate, but without Jupiter and Mars.

Sects are the work of Sectarians.

No truly great religious teacher, as Carlyle said, ever intended to found a new Sect.

Many things have been mistaken for religion, selfishness especially, but also fear, hope, love of music, of art, of pomp; scruples often take the place of love, and the glory of heaven is sometimes made to depend upon precious stones and jewelry.

Many, as has been well said, run after Christ, not for the miracles, but for the loaves.

In many cases religious differences are mainly verbal.

The Church is not a place for study or speculation. Few but can sympathize with Eugénie de Guréin in her tender affection for the little Chapel at Cahuze where she tells us she left "tant de misères."

Doubt does not exclude Faith.

"Perplexed in faith, but pure in deeds At last he beat his music out. There lies more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds." [3]

We may be sure that whatever may be right about religion, to quarrel over it must be wrong.

"Let others wrangle," said St. Augustine, "I will wonder."

Those who suspend their judgment are not on that account sceptics, and it is often those who think they know most, who are especially troubled by doubts and anxiety.

"Great God, I had rather be A Pagan suckled in some creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn."

In religion, as with children at night, it is darkness and ignorance which create dread; light and love cast out fear.

In looking forward to the future we may fairly hope with Ruskin that "the charities of more and more widely extended peace are preparing the way for a Christian Church which shall depend neither on ignorance for its continuance, nor on controversy for its progress, …

But between 40,000 vibrations in a second and 400 millions of millions we have no organ of sense capable of receiving the impression. Yet between these limits any number of sensations may exist.

We have five senses, and sometimes fancy that no others are possible. But it is obvious that we cannot measure the infinite by our own narrow limitations.

to that Literature which boasts of the prince of all poets, and of the prince of all philosophers; to that Literature which has exercised an influence wider than that of our commerce, and mightier than that of our arms."

Few of us make the most of our minds. The body ceases to grow in a few years; but the mind, if we will let it, may grow as long as life lasts.

The onward progress of the future will not, we may be sure, be confined to mere material discoveries. We feel that we are on the road to higher mental powers;

But though we may not as yet perceive any line of research which can give us a clue to the solution, in another sense we may hold that every addition to our knowledge is one small step toward the great revelation.

Progress may be more slow, or more rapid. It may come to others and not to us. It will not come to us if we do not strive to deserve it. But come it surely will.

"Yet one thing is there that ye shall not slay, Even thought, that fire nor iron can affright." [7]

they cannot have the fulness and depth which may accompany the consolations of age, and are amongst the richest rewards of an unselfish life.

For as with the close of the day, so with that of life; there may be clouds, and yet if the horizon is clear, the evening may be beautiful.

Old age has a rich store of memories. Life is full of

We are told of Mozart's death that "the unfinished requiem lay upon the bed, and his last efforts were to imitate some peculiar instrumental effects, as he breathed out his life in the arms of his wife and their friend Süssmaier."

Plato died in the act of writing; Lucan while reciting part of his book on the war of Pharsalus; Blake died singing

; Wagner in sleep with his head on his wife's shoulder. Many have passed away in their sleep. Various high medical authorities have expressed their surprise that the dying seldom feel either dismay or regret.