We don't laugh because we're happy - we're happy because we laugh.
Interpretation
Laughter can be a source of happiness rather than just a response to it.
This quote by William James suggests that laughter is not merely an expression of existing happiness but rather a catalyst for creating happiness. It emphasizes that engaging in laughter can enhance our mood and overall sense of joy, highlighting the importance of actively seeking out joy through simple acts such as laughing.
In practice
During a speech about mental health at a community event.
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
Meditation is the direct means of enjoying the greatest happiness and is the only means to quench the thirst for happiness on earth.
Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook, and a good digestion.
Do not forget that even as "to work is to worship" so to be cheery is to worship also, and to be happy is the first step to being pious.
I've had a remarkable life. I seem to be in such good places at the right time. You know, if you were to ask me to sum my life up in one word, gratitude.
If you can just appreciate each thing, one by one, then you will have pure gratitude. Even though you observe just one flower, that one flower includes everything
Living a good life leads to enduring happiness. Goodness in and of itself is the practice AND the reward.
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