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 →Like 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
One must laugh before one is happy, or one may die without ever laughing at all.
Jean De La BruyereRead
Happiness is the feeling that power increases - that resistance is being overcome.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Pierre was right when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and I now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy.
Leo TolstoyRead
The really wonderful moments of joy in this world are not the moments of self-satisfaction, but self-forgetfulness. Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and contemplating your own greatness is pathological. At such moments we are made for a magnificent joy that comes from outside ourselves.
John PiperRead
I'm trying to look at my blessings and how amazingly well against all odds things have turned out for me.
James TaylorRead
I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough, To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough, To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough, To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment—what is this, then? I do not ask any more delight—I swim in it, as in a sea.
Walt WhitmanRead