It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George SantayanaRead
A grateful environment is a substitute for happiness. It can quicken us from without as a fixed hope and affection, or as the consciousness of a right life, can quicken us from within.
Interpretation
Gratitude can enhance our sense of happiness both externally and internally.
This quote by George Santayana suggests that a grateful environment plays a crucial role in our happiness. It posits that external circumstances, filled with appreciation and gratitude, can uplift our spirits, while internal feelings of hope and living rightly can also enhance our well-being. Thus, both external and internal gratitude are vital for achieving true happiness.
In practice
Speaking at a wellness seminar about the importance of gratitude in daily life.
It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
The working of great institutions is mainly the result of a vast mass of routine, petty malice, self interest, carelessness and sheer mistake. Only a residual fraction is thought.
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colours of life in all their purity.
Not to believe in love is a great sign of dullness. There are some people so indirect and lumbering that they think all real affection rests on circumstantial evidence.
To feel beauty is a better thing than to understand how we come to feel it. To have imagination and taste, to love the best, to be carried by the contemplation of nature to a vivid faith in the ideal, all this is more, a great deal more, than any science can hope to be.
The vital straining towards an ideal, definite but latent, when it dominates a whole life, may express that ideal more fully than could the best chosen words.
Happiness and success in life are not the result of what we have, but rather of how we live. What we do with the things we have makes the biggest difference in the quality of life.
Happiness isn't a fortune in a cookie. It's deeper, wider, funnier, and more transporting than that.
There's a scripture that says, 'A merry heart doeth good like medicine.' I think that's true, too.
There are three things, and three things only, that can lift the pain of mortality and ease the ravages of life. These are wine, women and song.
Certainly there are times in all of our lives when bad things happen, or things don’t turn out as we had hoped. But that’s when we we must a decision that we’re going to be happy inspite of our circumstances.
Meal isn't over when I'm full. Meal's over when I hate myself.
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