Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Being happy is often overlooked as a responsibility, yet it positively impacts others around us.
This quote by Robert Louis Stevenson suggests that happiness is not just a personal feeling but also a duty that we have towards ourselves and society. When we embrace happiness, we not only enhance our own lives but also spread joy and positivity to those around us, creating a ripple effect of goodwill and benefits that often go unnoticed.
Themes
HappinessDutyPositive ImpactJoyBenefits
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about mental health, you might say: 'As Robert Louis Stevenson said, there's a duty in being happy that we often overlook, one that can influence others positively.'
More from Robert Louis Stevenson
All quotes βLike a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done, and raised up again into sober and fearful gratitude by the many he had come so near to doing, yet avoided.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
It is the history of our kindnesses that alone make this world tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters . . . I should be inclined to think our life a practical jest in the worst possible spirit.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
Similar quotes
Man is the artificer of his own happiness.
Henry David ThoreauRead
That in all these worldly Things, that a Man pursues with the greatest Eagerness and Intention of Mind imaginable, he finds not half the Pleasure in the actual Possession of them, that he proposed to himself in the Expectation.
Robert SouthRead
Having stumbled upon a tolerable career, for the first time in my life I was actually living above the poverty line. My hunger to climb had been blunted, in short, by a bunch of small satisfactions that added up to something like happiness.
Jon KrakauerRead
No man is happy; he is at best fortunate.
SolonRead
Happiness is the main object of our aspirations, whatever name we give to it: fulfilment, deep satisfaction, serenity, accomplishment, wisdom, fortune, joy or inner peace, and however we try to seek it: creativity, justice, altruism, striving, completion of a plan or a piece of work.
Matthieu RicardRead
I'm happy. I give thanks every morning that I can get up, that I still have my husband with me. I'm extremely grateful. After all, how many 93-year-old cover girls do you know?
Iris ApfelRead