Felicity Quotes

• Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Wise, Spiritual, Wealth

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• Happiness is essentially a gift; we are not the forgers of our own felicity.

  Josef Pieper

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• To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Inner Peace, Trying

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq”, p.343

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• True felicity consists of its own consciousness.

  Antoine Rivarol

  Consciousness

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• For Pleasure, Delight, Peace and Felicity live in method and temperance.

  Margaret Cavendish

  Delight, Pleasure, Method

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• That perfect bliss and sole felicity, the sweet fruition of an earthly crown.

  Christopher Marlowe

  Sweet, Perfect, Fruition

  'Tamburlaine the Great' (1590) pt. 1, act 2, sc. 7

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• Felicity is in possession, happiness in anticipation.

  Jean Racine

  Anticipation, Possession

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• Felicity, not fluency of language, is a merit.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Happiness, Fluency, Merit

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1851). “Essays and Reviews”, p.60

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• A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Happiness, Labor Day, Secret

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.6, Modern Library

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• A man's felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Inspirational, Men, Blessing

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• Felicity, the companion of content, is rather found in our own breasts than in the enjoyment of external things; and I firmly believe it requires but a little philosophy to make a man happy in whatever state he is.

  Daniel Boone

  Philosophy, Believe, Men

  Daniel Boone, Francis Lister Hawks (1996). “Daniel Boone: His Own Story”, p.4, Applewood Books

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• What more felicity can fall to creature, than to enjoy delight with liberty?

  Edmund Spenser

  Fall, Liberty, Delight

  'Muiopotmos' l. 209

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• A mind always employed is always happy.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Labor Day, Mind, May Day

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.6, Modern Library

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• Possession without obligation to the object possessed approaches felicity.

  George Meredith

  Duty, Possession, Obligation

  'The Egoist' (1879) ch. 14

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• Many children, many cares; no children, no felicity.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Children, Care

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• Human felicity is produced not as much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Inspirational, Gratitude, Pieces

  Autobiography pt. 3 (written 1788)

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• Vain are the beliefs and teachings that make man miserable, and false is the goodness that leads him into sorrow and despair, for it is man's purpose to be happy on this earth and lead the way to felicity and preach its gospel wherever he goes. He who does not see the kingdom of heaven in this life will never see it in the coming life. We came not into this life by exile, but we came as innocent creatures of God, to learn how to worship the holy and eternal spirit and seek the hidden secrets within ourselves from the beauty of life.

  Khalil Gibran

  Life, Teaching, Men

  "Spirits Rebellious". Book by Kahlil Gibran. Chapter "Khalil The Heretic", part 3, 1908.

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• How many young hearts have revealed the fact that what they had been trained to imagine, the highest earthly felicity, was but the beginning of care, disappointment, and sorrow, and often led to the extremity of mental and physical suffering.

  Catharine Beecher

  Marriage, Disappointment, Heart

  Catharine Esther Beecher (1872). “Woman's Profession as Mother and Educator: With Views in Opposition to Woman Suffrage”, p.211

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• They flaunt their conjugal felicity in one's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins.

  Oscar Wilde

  Marriage, Society, Faces

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.83, GENERAL PRESS

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• There is more felicity on the far side of baldness than young men can possibly imagine.

  Logan Pearsall Smith

  Men, Age, Sides

  Afterthoughts (1931) "Age and Death"

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  The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.

  Francis Bacon

  Jobs, Affliction, Ghost

  'Essays' (1625) 'Of Adversity'

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• Never lose sight of the fact that all human felicity lies in man's imagination, and that he cannot think to attain it unless he heeds all his caprices. The most fortunate of persons is he who has the most means to satisfy his vagaries.

  Marquis de Sade

  Lying, Mean, Men

  marquis de Sade (1988). “Juliette”, Grove Press

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• To have an inner life, to think, to juggle and leap, to become a tightrope walker in the world of ideas. To attack, to riposte, to refute, what a contest, what acclaim. To understand. The most generous word of all. Memory. To retain, a geyser of felicity. Intelligence. The agonizing poverty of my mind. Words and ideas flitting in and out like butterflies. My brain a dandelion seed blown in the wind.

  Violette Leduc

  Memories, Butterfly, Thinking

  Violette Leduc (1965). “La bâtarde: an autobiography”

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• Youth is too tumultuous for felicity; old age too insecure for happiness. The period most favorable to enjoyment, in a vigorous, fortunate, and generous life, is that between forty and sixty.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Happiness, Insecure, Age

  Christian Nestell Bovee (1862). “Intuitions and Summaries of Thought”, p.84

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• The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mind, Breaking Away, Anticipation

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.3

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