The Pursuit of Happiness: A Book of Studies and Strowings. Daniel G. Brinton

permanent in the transient, the ideal in the real, will infallibly lead him in triumph to the final goal of all Life. Whenever, without ulterior aim and for its own sake, we give ourselves up to the admiration of some grand scene in nature or masterful production of human art, we feel and recognize how near to us, how much a part of us, is that invisible and ideal world in which are set up the goals of man’s noblest aspirations. To unite these opposites, to illuminate the pleasures of sense with the light of the ideal, and, on the other hand, to capture its evanescent rays by entangling them in material enjoyments, is the final precept of the Art of Happiness.

      Anthropology, the Science of Man, is the point of convergence of all the other sciences; and the one aim of the Science of Man is the Happiness of man; thus the Pursuit of Happiness is the end of all pursuits. Pope displayed the inspiration of the poet when he devoted the final epistle of the Essay on Man to a discussion of,

      “Happiness, our being’s end and aim.”

      The study of Philosophy, said Socrates, is the studying how to die. I add, that the study of Happiness is the studying how to live; and that he who acquires either, possesses both.

      Rules for happiness are worth studying, even if they are no better than the rules for writing poetry: which are said to prevent ill poets, if they never make good ones.

       Fortunately, happiness is a tree with many roots. It does not depend entirely on outward circumstances; nor entirely on temperament or health; nor entirely on ourselves or on others; nor entirely on prudence or study. By cultivating any one of these, the tree will bear some fruit. So bounteous are the gifts of nature, that if we simply reduce the evils of life to something manageable, our happiness will often take care of itself.

      All history teaches that those who renounce pleasure for themselves are least scrupulous about inflicting pain on others.

      Genuine pleasure has this unique trait: the more you get for yourself, the more you provide for others.

      Pleasure and pain are common to all animals; and man’s most exalted joys and sorrows bear a family likeness to these universal sensations.

      In a certain sense, every pleasure is a victory, every pain a defeat; the former is allied to movements of attack, the latter to those of defense or submission.

      Pains are pains to all; while there are many pleasures which are such to but a few; though there is no reason but ignorance why they are not shared by the many.

       The bliss of ignorance consists in not knowing how much we never had, and in living unaware of the worst of our mistakes.

      Spiritualize your senses; the lowest of them may become first in the kingdom of culture. Sensualize your intellect; only thus can you attain the companionship of those noble brethren, Humanity and Urbanity.

      Our happiest moments are those in which we believe we can realize our ideals.

      Those who condemn the pursuit of Happiness reveal the baseness of their own conception of it.

      The doctrine that we should get rid of our wants by extinguishing our desires is suited to the clown in the story, who cut off his ears because they were cold.

      Self-realization is widely different from self-manifestation.

      An error that persuades us we are happy is more welcome than a truth which shows us we are not.

      Life is a sphere with an infinite number of sides; but, like the terrestrial globe, to each individual it seems a plain, bounded by his own horizon, with himself in its center.