We must never expect discretion in first love: it is accompanied by such excessive joy that unless the joy is allowed to overflow, it will choke you.
Alexandre DumasRead
Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Happiness requires effort and struggle to attain, much like fighting through obstacles to reach a treasure.
This quote by Alexandre Dumas suggests that achieving true happiness is not a simple task; it often involves facing and overcoming challenges, similar to how fairy tale heroes must battle dragons to access their rewards. Happiness is depicted as a valuable treasure that, to be enjoyed, requires perseverance and courage in the face of adversity.
Themes
HappinessStruggleCouragePerseveranceTreasure
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about personal growth and resilience.
More from Alexandre Dumas
All quotes βThere are two ways of seeing: with the body and with the soul. The body's sight can sometimes forget, but the soul remembers forever.
Alexandre DumasRead
I do not often laugh, sir, as you may perceive by the air of my countenance; but nevertheless, I retain the privilege of laughing when I please.
Alexandre DumasRead
There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.
Alexandre DumasRead
Those born to wealth, and who have the means of gratifying every wish, know not what is the real happiness of life, just as those who have been tossed on the stormy waters of the ocean on a few frail planks can alone realize the blessings of fair weather.
Alexandre DumasRead
It is the way of weakened minds to see everything through a black cloud. The soul forms its own horizons; your soul is darkened, and consequently the sky of the future appears stormy and unpromising
Alexandre DumasRead
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I had thought joy to be rather synonymous with happiness, but it seems now to be far less vulnerable than happiness. Joy seems to be a part of an unconditional wish to live, not holding back because life may not meet our preferences and expectations. Joy seems to be a function of the willingness to accept the whole, and to show up to meet with whatever is there. It has a kind of invincibility that attachment to any particular outcome would deny us.
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Happiness includes chiefly the idea of satisfaction after full honest effort. No one can possibly be satisfied and no one can be happy who feels that in some paramount affairs he failed to take up the challenge of life.
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Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it is what I have steadfastly believed.
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