Insecurity twists meanings and poisons trust. In a closely beleaguered city every sentry is a potential traitor.
Graham GreeneRead
So long as one is happy one can endure any discipline: it was unhappiness that broke down the habits of work.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Happiness can provide the strength to endure difficult tasks, while unhappiness leads to a breakdown in discipline.
In this quote, Graham Greene emphasizes the importance of happiness as a driving force behind perseverance and discipline. He suggests that when individuals are happy, they can face and endure challenges and responsibilities with greater ease, but when they are unhappy, it leads to a loss of motivation and commitment to their work or habits.
Themes
HappinessDisciplineWorkMotivationPerseverance
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about resilience and perseverance in the workplace.
More from Graham Greene
All quotes →It seemed to Scobie that life was immeasurably long. Couldn’t the test of man have been carried out in fewer years? Couldn’t we have committed our first major sin at seven, have ruined ourselves for love or hate at ten, have clutched at redemption on a fifteen-year-old deathbed?
Graham GreeneRead
God is love. I don't say the heart doesn't feel a taste of it, but what a taste. The smallest glass of love mixed with a pint pot of ditch-water. We wouldn't recognize that love. It might even look like hate. It would be enough to scare us - God's love.
Graham GreeneRead
Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.
Graham GreeneRead
Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.
Graham GreeneRead
Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.
Graham GreeneRead
Similar quotes
One is happy as a result of one's own efforts, once one knows of the necessary ingredients of happiness-simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience. Happiness is no vague dream, of that I now feel certain.
George SandRead
But the rest are even scared to open up and laugh. You know, that's the first thing that got me about this place, that there wasn't anybody laughing. I haven't heard a real laugh since I came through that door, do you know that? Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.
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What has changed is that nothing has changed... that's what has made me more unhappy than everything else.
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There's hope. It doesn't cost a thing to smile. You don't have to pay to laugh. You better thank God for that.
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A comfortable house is a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience.
Sydney SmithRead
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.
Rachel Naomi RemenRead